Short track aficionados and thousands of students from 20 different schools were lucky enough to be the firsts to witness the efforts made by PAVIM to bring a breath of fresh air to the presentation of major short track speed skating events in Montreal. It's in a festive atmosphere that the 2018 ISU short track world championships started at the Maurice-Richard arena today.
By Carl Savard
Photo by Tony Chung ( @SHORTTRACKHD )
This first day of competition was a qualifying one as the skaters selected to compete in individual distances needed to race on the three distances today to get their tickets for the weekend. This first day started with the 1500m. Not many surprises as most of the top dogs were able to qualify for the semis that will be held tomorrow. Canada's Pascal Dion missed his chance finishing third in a slow race while J.R. Celski was penalised in his heat. If Canadian legend Charles Hamelin, who announced earlier this week that he was postponing his retirement plan, and Samuel Girard made it pass this round pretty easily, things didn't go as well on the women's side. Jamie Macdonald and Marianne St-Gelais both fell in their respective races. The Canadian olympic sensation Kim Boutin was able to win her spot in the semifinals.
Skaters on the men’s side had to go through two rounds to qualify for the main event on 500m. Even though bad luck seemed to be glued to Canada’s Pascal Dion and USA’s J.R. Celski, we still had an amazing show on the distance. Local favorite, Charles Hamelin was dominant in a race where he had to battle with Sjinkie Knegt from the Netherlands and China’s Han Tianyu. His young teammate Samuel Girard was just as strong and qualified for the big show. On the women’s side, Dutch’s supertstar Suzanne Schulting who’s been sick and battling fever since she arrived in Montreal, won’t be fighting with the bests this weekend on 500m. All the female skaters from the top three countries in short track (Canada, Korea, China) qualified.
Nothing to declare on 1000m as all the leaders in the sport qualified for this weekend's action. Like we told you earlier this week, if you were not able to get tickets for the sold out event, you will be able to watch all the action on TVA Sports.
Nothing to declare on 1000m as all the leaders in the sport qualified for this weekend's action. Like we told you earlier this week, if you were not able to get tickets for the sold out event, you will be able to watch all the action on TVA Sports.
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