Long track speed skating

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Long track speed skating or long track speedskating is a form of speedskating in which competitors attempt to travel a certain distance as quickly as possible on skates. Other types of speedskating are short track speedskating, inline speedskating, and quad speed skating.

1 The Rink
- 1.1 Indoor Tracks
- 1.2 Outdoor Tracks
2 History
3 Competition format
4 Notable skaters
5 External links

[edit] The Rink

Skaters race against the clock on a huge, two lane oval longer than a football field. A long track is 400 meters around. Two international sized hockey rinks can fit end to end in the infield of the long track with room for spectator seating. Long track is the fastest of the speed skating disciplines. Skaters can reach 57–58 km per hour (ca. 35 mph) during the shorter distances. Long track skaters pioneered the use of the clap skate with its long, hinged blade.

[edit] Indoor Tracks

Calgary
Milwaukee
Salt Lake City
Richmond (under construction)

The long track Olympic Oval in Calgary. 2 hockey rinks fit inside the long track rink.

[edit] Outdoor Tracks

[edit] History

See history of Speed Skating.

[edit] Competition format

[edit] Single distances

The most basic form of speed skating consists of skating a single event. This is the format used for the World Single Distance Championships and the World Cup. Usual distance include the 500 m, 1000 m, 1500 m, 3000 m (women only), 5000 m and 10000 m (men only), but several other distances are sometimes skated such as 100m and 1 mile.

The 500m is usually skated with two runs, so that every skater has one race starting on the outer lane and one on the inner. This practice started at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. The reason is that there is a significant advantage of starting on the inner lane.

[edit] Allround

One of the oldest skating formats is the allround event. Skaters skate four distances and a ranking is made up based on the times skated on all of these distances. The method of scoring is the same for all combinations. All times are calculated back to 500 m times. That means that 500 m in 40 seconds will give you 40 points, while 1500 m (3×500 m) in 2 minutes (120 seconds, equivalent to 3×40 s) will also give you 40 points. Points are calculated to 3 decimal places, and truncation is applied, the numbers are not rounded. The skater who has the fewest points wins the competition. This system is called Samalog.

[edit] Team Pursuit

The team pursuit is the only team event in long track speed skating and is skated by teams of three skaters. Two teams race at a time, starting at a line in the middle of the straightaway. One team starts on each side of the track. Only the inner lane is used, and the distance is 8 laps for men and 6 for women.

There are several formats for the team pursuit. The Olympic format is unusual in that it is a cup format, with several rounds of exclusion between two teams. In the World Cup and World Championships, one race is skated and the teams are ranked by their finishing time. In the Olympic format, a team that overtakes the other has automatically won the race and the remaining distance isn't skated. In practice, the distance is so short that this rarely happens unless one team has a fall.

The team pursuit is a new event in major international competitions. Similar events have been skated for years on a smaller scale, but was not considered an "official" ISU event until around 2004. It was introduced at the Olympics in 2006.

[edit] Marathon

Skaters skate in a large group and they skate large distances. When conducted at an ice rink oval, the distance is usually around 40 km, akin to the traditional marathon in running. When skated outdoor on natural ice, the distances can be as long as 200 km. An example of this is the famous Elfstedentocht (Eleven cities tour) which is irregularly held in the Netherlands. An example of a famous marathon outside the Netherlands is the International Big Rideau Lake Speed Skating Marathon in Portland, Ontario, Canada.