Short Track Speed Skating
Table of Contents Table of Contents -Introduction (p.2 ) -Short track speed skating equipment (p.3-4) -Rules (p. 5) -Variations (p.6) -Suzanne Schulting (p.7) -Arianna Fontana (p.8) -Ren Ziwei (p.9) -Bibliography (p.10)
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Introduction
Short track speed skating is a winter sport in which different skaters compete to be the fastest racer to cross the finish line after having skated a specified amount of time. Short track speed skating has been around for more than a hundred years, the first speed skating club was established in London in 1888. The sport later became more popular and spread to European countries. Currently, the sport has become more popular as the “The ISU has 87 affiliated national/regional fewderations/clubs, which are its members. The members represent 66 different nations/regions.”. The sport is now also included in the Olympic games after it’s first appearance in 1992. Speed skating is being dominated mainly by the Netherlands but a lot of other countries are beginning to receive a lot more opportunities to win competitions.
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Safety and Short Track Equipment Short Track Speed Skating can be a very dangerous sport because a lot of collisions and wipe outs happen, this is when multiple skaters obstruct, push or bump against each other and then a lot of them fall at high speeds on the ice. This is one of the reasons why there is equipment designed to prevent any fatal injuries or career changing acidents. The first piece of crucial equipment needed for short track skating are gloves, gloves are essential for protecting a skaters hands from their skating blades or other racer’s skating blades. On top of that, the left hand glove has rubber covers on the fingertips. This is for when a short tracker goes along a curve in the track and they will be able to use their hand as stability by leaning to their left hand side onto the fingertips. If the bottom of the hand touches the ice, the skater will fall and sometimes even crash into others. A helmet is also crucial and essential to short track skaters, this is so that when an incident does occur, a skater’s head is protected and they would proably not injure themselves too severly. The most important of all is the short tracker’s skates. The skates consists of the boots and the blades. NBC Olympics says that “Short track boots lace higher up the ankle than traditional skates and are constructed from fiberglass, graphite and Kevlar, using customized foot molds to help stabilize the foot and ankle around the corners. Socks are rarely worn.”. The boots need to be comfortable for the skater and they need to be quite compact around the feet so that it doesn’t result in any injuries. The second aspect of the skates is the blade, They are speciallly modified to maintain high speeds and keeping stable mobility in the turns. The blades are extremely sharp and are a little off center to make sure that the skater’s boot doesn’t touch the ice while turning and falll because of that.
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Short Track Speed Skating Equipment There is special protective gear used for short track speed skating. The neck/throat protector makes sure that a skater doesn’t get injured during a fall. Just like the shin pads and knee pads, the body would be protected during a fall. Goggles are not essential and therfore not all athletes decide to wear them but the athletes that do wear them is to make sure that they do not get any pieces of ice into their eyes which would restrict their vision. Lastly, short trackers wear special clothes to minimize air resistance. The uniforms are very compact to the skin and they are designed for each singular skater. This is needed to make sure that the equipment fits and doesn’t restrict an athlete’s movement.
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Rules
Diagram of short track positions. (normally there’s no chief referees.)
Short track speed skating has various rules, if these rules aren’t followed they are liable to disqualification. The skaters race on a 111. 12 meter cicuit, shaped as a oval. The oval is made up of short track markers that are layed into the shape of an oval. If a skater moves inside of the oval or inside of the short track marker, then they are automatically disqualified. The race starts by the sound of a fired gun. If a contestant moves too early, they are given a warning on the basis of a “false start”. If the skaters have multiple false starts, they are at considerable risk of being disqualified. Dependign on the variation that a contestant is racing, a skater is allowed to continue the race after they have fallen. During a relay, the “relay player” or the person that continues the race after another skater during a relay race, can only come onto the circuit, after the previous athlete has completed atleast one lap. Rules of Sport states that “If two athletes meet on a corner, the racer in the inner lane must give right of way to the rival on the outer lane. Failing to oblige to this regulation or impeding an opponent in any way will result in disqualification.”
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Variations Short track speed skating has many different distances and variations of competition. There is individual short track racing in different distances, this is when you race against other athletes of the same gender in ta specified distance. Different distance short track skating requires different techniques, tactics and strategies. This is why different skaters might be better at longer distances or shorter ones. There’s also mixed relay racing and normal relay racing. Each country has it’s own team and they compete to be the fastest to complete a larger distance. Relay races are more complicated because there are more people involved, a single team generally has 4 athletes and each one of them is either, racing, preparing, covering or resting. The diagram below shows where each of the skaters would go considering there are 5 teams competing.
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Suzanne Schulting
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Suzanne Schulting is a Dutch short track speed skaters, she is the number one short tracker in the world among the women. Suzanne Schulting is 24 years old being born in 1997 on september 25th. She has been competing in short track competitions since she was 8 years old. She is a very succesful short tracker and has won multiple World championships and Olympic medals, she won 20 European Championship medals, 6 Olympic medals and 10 World Championship medals. Suzanne Schulting is the world record holder for the 1000 meter (female) category. She achieved this record in 2022 at the Olympic games in Beijing with a time of 1 minute and 26.514 seconds. Suzanne Schulting is known for taking the lead in the competition and later on continuining to maintain her lead infront of the other competitors. She has the ability to do this because her endurance is very good so she can easily maintian high speeds for a long time. This is why her specialty is longer distances.
Arianna Fontana
Arianna Fontana is a Italian short track speed skater, she is 32 years and she was born in 1990 on april 14th. She was the youngest ever Italian to win a medal at the winter games. (age 15 in 2006). Fontana is currently the holder of 11 olympic medals and is therefore the most decorated female short track skater in history. Fontana is seen as a legend and mentor by many because of her experience and fast comebacks. In 2022 at the Olympic games in Beijing she won a gold medal racing among the top short trackers such as Korean, Choi Min-Jeong and Suzanne Schulting. Fontana started skating at the age of 4, following in the footsteps of her brother. She was selected as the flag bearer for Italy during the 2018 Pyeonchang Winter Games. This shows that she is well known and honored. Arianna Fontana is very fast and therefore her specialty lies more near shorter distances but she performs very well at all the distances she competes in.
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REN Ziwei
Ren Ziwei is a very succesful Chinese Short track skating athlete, he is curretly the number one short tracker for the men in the overall category. He was born in Harbin, China and competes for the Chinese short track team. He’s born on june 3rd in 1997 and is 25 years old. He has won 3 Olympic medals, 2 of which are gold and one of them is silver. He has participated in 2 Olympic games, his first one was Pyeonchang 2018. He is also in China’s relay team which is ranked at 4th place in the 3000 meters world ranking.
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Bibliography “Arianna Fontana.” Olympics.com, https://olympics.com/en/athletes/arianna-fontana. “Arianna Fontana.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 May 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Arianna_Fontana. History of Short Track Speed Skating – Hong Kong Skating Union ... - HKSU. http://hksu.org/ en_US/about-skating/short-track-speed-skating/history-of-short-track-speed-skating. International Olympic Committee. “Medals Update: People’s Republic of China Win Gold and Silver in Men’s 1000m Short Track.” Olympics.com, International Olympic Committee, 8 Feb. 2022, https://olympics.com/en/news/medal-review-medals-update-athlete-wins-gold-in-beijing-2022-short-tra. Levenson, Eric. “What’s the Most Dominant Country in Each Winter Olympic Sport?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 12 May 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2014/02/whats-dominant-country-each-winter-olympic-sport/358228/. Lewis, Danny. “Arianna Fontana by the Numbers.” Olympics.com, International Olympic Committee, 16 Feb. 2022, https://olympics.com/en/news/short-track-arianna-fontana-by-the-numbers. “Short Track 101: Equipment.” Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, https://www.nbcolympics. com/news/short-track-101-equipment. Short Track Speed Skating - Rankings, https://shorttrack.sportresult.com/Rankings.aspx?rep=65315. “Suzanne Schulting.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 May 2022, https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Suzanne_Schulting. User, Super. “Speed Skating Rules.” Speed Skating | Sports | Rules of Sport, https://www.rulesofsport.com/sports/speed-skating.html#:~:text=Rules%20of%20Speed%20Skating&text=In%20Short%20Track%2C%20they%20are,serious%20risk%20of%20being%20disqualified. Wang, Yuxuan, et al. “Multiplayer Tracking System for Short Track Speed Skating.” The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 1 Dec. 2014, https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ doi/full/10.1049/iet-cvi.2014.0001.
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