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SHORT TRACK 101:
Course Description:
The basics of Short Track! The 'syllabus' for this class is from the 2007-2008 US Speedskating Media Guide, followed by an excellent primer from John Coyle's blog, which can be found at http://johnkcoyle.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/torino-3-12-a-short-track-speedskating-primer/ The Media Guide contains a wealth of ST and LT info, and can be obtained from the US Speedskating Store
Overview:
Short Track made its official Olympic debut at the 1992 Winter Games, having been a demonstration sport in 1988. It is contested in an indoor rink on a 111-meter oval track - an international size hockey rink (30 x 60 meters).
Short Track races are fast and exciting. Skaters can reach speeds up to 35 mph. Skaters race in 'packs' of four to six skaters, and unlike Long Track racing, skaters race against each other rather than against the clock. Times are kept in Short Track racing for the sold purpose of establishing local, national and world records. Spectators are thrilled by the action of a fast-moving pack on a small track. The fast pace along with the opportunity for contact and occasional spills make for some of the most exciting racing in the world. In fact, Time Magazine described speedskating as 'human NASCAR'.
Skaters not only possess a combination of incredible power and speed, but must also be masters of technique and strategy. Endurance is critical as skaters often compete in a series of elimination heats, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals. The rest time between these competitions can sometimes be as little as 20 minutes.
The ability to 'read' a race and its competitors is vital to getting in position for the win. A typical strategy might involve one competitor taking the lead quickly and setting a fast pace in an effort to 'burn out' the other skaters. There are also times when a slow pace may be set with skaters jockeying for position in anticipation of a sprint for the finish line during the last three or four laps.
Equipment:
Because of the size of the track and the sharp turns, the walls of the rink are padded to minimize injuries. Skaters wear protective equipment such as hard shell helmets, gloves with carbon fiber fingertips, knee pads, neck guards, shin guards, and cut-resistant uniforms, called 'skinsuits'.
Short Track skates are molded to the foot and reinforced in the ankles to counteract the centrifugal force of the sharp turns. Blades are offset to provide greater lean - the blade on the left boot is set on the outside of the boot and the blade on the right boot is set on the inside of the boot. (Rocker U edit: think about riding a bicycle - if you take a sharp turn with your inside pedal at its lowest point, that pedal may scrape the ground, causing you to lose control. The corollary in Short Track is called 'booting out', and setting the blades as far as possible toward the inside of the track allows the skaters to lean hard without their boots scraping the ice.) Skaters may also 'bend' their blades matching the direction of the curve of the track, assisting them with better steering and traction when negotiating their turns.
The Rules:
Usually, competitors skate a series of heats or elimination rounds for the individual events. Heats have up to six skaters, with the top two finishers from each heat advancing to the next round. (Rocker U edit: often, skaters with the fastest third-place times will be advanced to round out the field at the next level. Also, skaters who have been unfairly interfered with will be advanced.)
Each skater is allowed one false start, but will be disqualified if they are the cause of a second false start. The start is crucial to the skater, particularly in the shorter distances, because the start is not staggered and a skater wants to move to the inside immediately. Skaters must skate outside the blocks during the entire race, although a finger can skim the surface of the ice inside the blocks as long as the skater rounds the blocks.
Passing:
Passing must be done cleanly and without body contact. Passing is tricky, and skaters take advantage of key areas to pass. If the lead skater strays too far from the track markers, he or she can be passed on the inside by an alert competitor. If the track is skated tightly by the pack, passing must then be done on the outside.
The rules on passing other skaters are strict. One infraction and a skater can be disqualified. The lead skater has the right of way and the passing skater must assume responsibility for avoiding body contact. The most frequent passing occurs when a skater passes on the inside near the first or second block of the corner.
Intentionally pushing, obstructing or colliding with another racer calls for the offender's disqualification and a chance for advancement to the next round by the victim of the offense. Improperly crossing the course or 'cross-tracking' is also prohibited, as is kicking your skate across the finish line. A bell warns the skaters when they are one lap from the finish. (Rocker U edit: racers may extend their skate, but the blade must be touching the ice, and not in a raised position.)
Falls:
Given the frequent contact between skaters in Short Track racing, falls are not uncommon. Although a competitor is not disqualified for a fall, to come from behind and win after a fall in any individual event is very difficult. Skaters may still do well in the final classification of the competition by recording strong finishes in the other individual events. (Rocker U edit: skaters, when physically able, DO make heroic efforts to finish a race - even if injured - because finishing does have great meaning in the standings - see Scoring, below.)
Scoring - US and World Events:
Winners are determined by order of finish, not by time. Skaters can earn points according to their order of finish: 34, 21, 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, and 1 are awarded in descending order commencing with first place. Points earned in all rounds leading up to the final are called 'seeding points'. Points earned in finals of any given race are called 'final points'. Final Points have preference over Seeding Points. The overall winner of an event is the skater with the greatest number of Final Points.
Distances:
500m = 4.5 laps
1000m = 9 laps
1500m = 13.5 laps
3000m = 27 laps
5000m = 45 laps
Age Group Classifications:
Coming Soon!
I first saw the following 'gem' on Ohnozone.net - thank you to Justsayin' for posting the link!
A SHORT TRACK SPEEDSKATING PRIMER:
January 27, 2008 by John K Coyle
SHORT TRACK SPEEDSKATING - an introduction
Basics:
The logistics of the sport of short track speedskating are easy to comprehend. A simple visual will suffice: inside the nicked and gauged plastic walls surrounding hockey rinks the world over an oval track is laid out using black plastic lane markers - 7 of them per corner, with one center, or apex block. The total course distance is 111.12 meters in length. 9 laps = 1000 meters. Add a few speedskaters in their skin tight multi-colored suits racing not for time, but for the finish line - like track and field or horse racing - and the simple format is complete.
The fundamental metrics of short track speedskating are also straightforward - a fixed number of laps (or half laps) comprising an even distance in meters (500, 1000, 1500, 3000 or 5000 meters representing 4.5, 9, 13.5, 27 and 45 laps respectively), with the first skater across the line being first. Time on the stopwatch, while an interesting anecdote, does not factor into the results.
Yet, like many things in life that seem straightforward, the actual play by play of the sport tends to defy the simplicity of its rules. Crashes, interference, and disqualifications factor into the results at levels unprecedented in any other sport, and even in 'clean' races, the dynamics involved with multiple competitors lined up on a tight, short, narrow track of ice going 35 mph on 1mm wide, 18 inch blades means that the 'fastest' skater quite often does not win. One need only to remember watching the Australian Stephen Bradbury in the 2002 Olympics, who advanced by luck of disqualifications in the 1000 meter heats to qualify for the semi finals.
Self-admittedly the slowest skater in those semi-finals, Bradbury proceeded to win that race - after all the other skaters crashed, placing him in the finals and into the medal round. Then again in the finals, while pacing off the back of a pack of top ranked USA, Korean, and Canadian skaters, Bradbury managed to avoid a disastrous crash that took out all four leading skaters and come across the line first - again not through his own merits - rather through the misfortune of the other skaters. The gold medal was his - even though his efforts in all the preceding rounds in that race suggested those of a non-contender.
Given the seeming randomness of the results, one might be inclined to shake ones head and put the whole thing down as a bit of a lottery. One thing is for sure, in any given race, luck will play a part. It is this unpredictability that makes it the crowd favorite for all the other athletes at the Olympics.
Analogies:
Short track tends to draw two analogies in sports - first, NASCAR - due to the importance of drafting and the critical path skaters must follow to maximize their speed, and second, horseracing, for the relative importance of the track conditions and race length in the final result. Who will win on any given day? It depends…
· Is the ice soft or hard? How long is the race?
· Who's fit? Who's strong? Who's going to take risks?
· What combination of skaters is racing? How will it play out?
· What unforeseen events will occur?
Why All The Disqualifications?:
In the relatively recent years since short track speedskating has entered the mainstream consciousness, it has brought along with it the expected perceptions of speed and danger and unpredictability. In addition, there also exists an ongoing element of controversy with regards to the judging system and the calls for disqualification (or lack thereof) that have occurred in many of Olympic races. In the first few Olympics where short track took place (1992, 1994) the din centered around two time gold medalist American Kathy Turner in the women's races. In 2002 the men took on their fair share of the controversies:
In 1994 the protest and accusations swirled around Turner and her aggressive skating en-route to winning gold in the 500m. First there was controversy in the face of an early collision with Natalie Lambert of Canada in the heats, and then in the final there was contact with the Chinese champion Zhang Yanmei - who claimed that Turner had grabbed her leg en-route to her second consecutive gold medal.
In 1998 the women's 500m final provided yet another interesting footnote in the sport, with Isabel Charest of Canada taking out Wang Chunlu of China and drawing a foul in the process. Wang did not finish the requisite number of laps, so with Charest and Wang out, the bronze medal was awkwardly awarded to a skater not even in the race - South Korea's Chun Lee-Kyung - who had won the B-final.
(This) brings us back to 2002, where in the 1500m men's final, a disqualification of Korean skater Kim Dong Song led to a gold medal - a first for American men - being awarded to Apolo Ohno who physically crossed the line second. However, the controversial nature of the call, and the dearth of medals for the strong team of Korean men led to highly publicized death threats from the Korean public. When Apolo returned to Korea for the first time since the 2002 Olympics for the 2005 world championships, he was met at the airport by 100 policemen in full riot regalia - just in case.
Then, of course there was the 1000 meter incident with Bradbury…
One unexpected outcome of all the uncertainty in the sport of short track is cultural in nature. One might expect that with all of the clashes and crashes, disqualifications and controversy that the tensions between rival teams and competitors might be very high: that the close proximity in the races might result in a natural distancing factor between athletes off ice and outside the venue. Surprisingly, this couldn't be further from the truth.
A look at the sister sport of long track speedskating, a sport with no physical contact, few to no disqualifications, and racers competing almost clinically against the clock (in separate lanes and only two at a time) finds a culture where competitive tensions are at their highest. Long Track speedskaters are, more often than not, solitary, taciturn creatures, with serious countenances betraying the competitive tension embodied in every activity. Short track skaters, in contrast tend to convivial, open and playful, with the occasional prank between and within teams a long standing tradition - a culture where each emotional explosion at referees for a disqualification (or lack thereof) is equally matched by the off ice hijinks, stories and accompanying laughter between the skaters in their locker rooms, in the shared spaces playing hackysack, and back at the hotel over dinner.
It is as if the vagaries of the sport, the unpredictability of the results, and the shared suffering of uncertainty over the whims of lady luck has created a common culture of tolerance, humility and respect between athletes of different cultures, languages and perspectives. In deference to this very real aspect of the sport, there is an oft-repeated-little-understood phrase repeated consistently by the competitors that ultimately reflects this shared understanding - a phrase that tends to sound awkward without the context behind it.
This phrase was aptly quoted by our own Apolo Ohno. Apolo was interviewed on camera just after the 2002 Olympic 1000 meter gold medal race where he had crossed the finish line sprawled across the ice, belly up, in second place after being taken down from behind by a four skater chain reaction crash in the final corner. He had just lost certain gold to the unlikely Australian Steven Bradbury who glided in on the wings of lady luck - well out of contention - yet the winner of the coveted gold medal. Asked for his views on the events that had unfolded, it would have been understandable if Apolo had been less than charitable, especially given the stitches he would undergo, and the scrutiny he received for his "lucky" prior finish, and the fact that he was clearly interfered with… Apolo could have said things such as "it was unfair, I had it in the bag, the Korean skater grabbed my leg, Steven wasn't even a contender…" but true to the culture of the sport, and out of respect for the dozens, if not hundreds of races that Steven didn't win under similar circumstances, Apolo merely shrugged, smiled, and uttered those seemingly innocuous yet significant words repeated over and over in this turbulent and exciting world: "That's Short Track."
It sure is.
John K Coyle
(Rocker U edit: Disqualifications are often misunderstood by novices as 'dirty play'. This is seldom true - it is more often the result of a skater misjudging a split-second decision to attempt a pass. You can liken it to fouls in basketball - the foul may be inadvertent and without malicious intent, but it's a foul nonetheless. In short track, when the risk of injury is extremely high, the penalty for a 'foul' is disqualification from the race.)
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