Welcome to Peter Doucet's updates from the 2006 World Roller Speed Skating Championships coming to you direct from Anyang, Korea. Updates are planned to be posted on a nightly basis or perhaps less frequently once racing begins. The championships take place September 2nd to the 9th. Peter Doucet & the rest of the Canadian team will leave Canada on August 27th and return on September 11th.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Racing: Day 1 Track

Wow, where to start. First what a night I had last night. At the opening ceremony, I took a bag from Tyler, our team manager. Well it ends up that I forgot the bag at the ceremony. That was quite the smooth move because in the bag were all our team’s bibs. Well, a few hours later around midnight, Tyler and I found ourselves digging through garbage bins trying to find the numbers.


Tyler and I were really excited when our numbers turned up this morning. It ends up that the skaters from Portugal picked them up and gave the bibs to the officials.


It’s quite hot and shade is hard to come by. Skaters were even trying to find shade under the giant floating balloons and banners.


Jesse Pauley (in red to the right of the USA skater) put together a great 15km elimination race. He finished top-20 and avoided some pretty crazy crashes that saw dozens of skaters go down at a time. There was also some pretty intense falls in the senior women’s race where again, about 15 skaters went down at once. Sigrid Ziegler was one of the victims of a fall in the 2nd lap of her 15k.

The junior women’s race was just awesome to watch. With about 11 laps to go, a skaters from Korea just took off. At that point, it was like the pack exploded! I just looked like 12 skaters skating a time trial on the track. The Korean was caught by Chile’s Catherine Penan who also looked like she was out of gas. Then two Colombian skaters went after for 1st, but one of them ended up 2nd and the other dropped out.


USA controlled the front of the men’s 15k elimination race. Joey Mantia won the race passing the two Colombian skaters with 100-meter to go. Colombia placed 2nd and 3rd.


The vendor’s area is usually bustling with people. There’s food, equipment vendors, tables, an internet café, souvenir tents.


Colombia’s Berenice Moreno after her senior women’s 300-meter victory. New Zealand’s Kalon Dobbon won the men’s race, just missing breaking 25 seconds. 2nd was USA’s Joey Mantia and 3rd Italy’s Gergory Duggento. There was no crashes in the senior men’s race and racing was quite calm with not a lot of change of positions in the top-6 or 7.


While I was watching some of the races, I kept my eyes on the referees. Things were quite serious, but they were also able to have fun. These two referees came to see someone on the sidelines right after the finish line. The referee who rings the bell rang it. The referees on the track thought a skater was coming and scampered off the track in a panic that they clearly did not want to advertise. They obviously laughed it off afterwards.

Guido Ferra is putting up live results on PatinCarera. He’s updating his website from track-side. They’ve got a press section with internet connections! I wish I had that last year.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Amazing Opening Ceremony

All I can say about the opening ceremonies is that they were absolutely incredible. The organizers have their act together and it was proven tonight. Before some athletes marched out, there was a great show featuring breakdancers, tae kwon do, traditional dances, choir, fire and fire works, and speeches.

Every single smallest detail is taken care of. The pamphets, the flags, the glow sticks for the audience. Even Tyler Cogdon today who was at meetings all day received a beautiful belt with a clock in the buckle featuring worlds logos embossed into the metal.

I've eated my dinner early because I went shopping the other day (you probably saw the vide0- if you can't find the videos, look right and scroll down and you'll see them). Most of the team is out right now at a Korea grill. I'm just sitting down, lying down, and listening to music.

Tomorrow will be the 300-meter and the 15km points/ elimination races. I'll be in the 15k with Andrew. Andrew and AJ will skate the 300. Alex and Jade will do the 300 and Alex and Jesse will do the 15k. I think Sigrid is doing both. I'm going to warm-up for the 300's so I can get more time on the track and learn the corners some more.


The Canadian team before the opening ceremony. Jesse and Sigrid are not in the picture because they had to leave 3 hours earlier from the hotel to rehearse the flag ceremony. Alex Perrie and Tyler were away at meetings and missed the start of the ceremony.


Tea Kwon Do- the demonstration squad from the university. These people were amazing. Just amazing.


The city youth choir- they had 4 melodies going at once and sounded amazing. They had dance rituals and their timing and tone was bang on.


People dressed as something that I can't describe came out with a wheel. The skate was lowered from the ceiling and the wheels were attached. The whole skate was then lifted.


Jessica Smith and Brittany Bowe- two great american skaters. I've never seen them not smiling. They're even always nice to me!


50 coutntries at this year's worlds. Thousands of people filling the arena for the spectacle.


The Italians were super enthusiastic, waving flags and being happy and proud about their country. They just all seem so super happy to be at worlds, I find the joy really shines through in them.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

One Day to go, Opening Ceremonies Tonight

The opening ceremonies will take place tonight. Sigrid Ziegler and Jesse Pauley will carry the Canadian flag. The rest of us have a nice 6-hour break. This will be the last big break for a while I think. Jesse thinks that carrying the flag will be fun. It's like he's going to be leading us out and he likes that.

Tyler Congdon, from Calgary, is the team manager. He is spending a lot time in meetings today. The meeting he went to this morning confirmed that next year's worlds are in Colombia and the following year in Spain.

About the meeting, Tyler said that parts of it were in English, but that when there were other languages being used, he could use a multi-channel radio and tune into the one where they were translating it into English. They did this for many different languages.


I like this shot of Sigrid Ziegler and Alex D'mello. It was taken during our practice. Today, we were doing some fast laps and openning 100's. We're getting our times down, but we need way more time on the track. Unfortunately, we have no more time left! We race tomorrow.


The Mexican team has 17 skaters according to my friend Alan who is part of their squad. He said that he doesn't feel like it is hot here in Korea, but rather it is humid.


The team from Iran sent many skaters.


The guy on the right in the green shirt is Jason. He used to live in Missisauga right by square one. Now he works for Hyper in Korea.

Training Day: Practice with Colombia

Today was one of those regular days at the World Championships. I had like 6 hours to just lay around in the morning. Some of the Canadian team members toured the city, a few others slept, and some walked around the hotel.

At training, we got to skate at the same time as the Colombian team. There's a lot of them and they are good. Of course I was all giddy because I got to talk to a few skaters like Diego Rosero (Colombia), Pier Davide Romani (Italy), and Jorge Botero. When I said hi to Jorge Botero, I called him Mr. Botero.


I love the Netherlands suit this year. I will definitely try to trade for one of these.


Alex D'mello in good company- red on red. Canada right on Colombia's tail.

We concentrated on 2 things at practice; trying out different wheels and trying to get our lap times down. We're all improving, but there's still a lot of room for improvement in terms of being 'up there' with the most competitive skaters.


The big red Colombian machine; the train gets rolling and doesn't stop until the finish line. Their practices are like clock-work.


Information center at the track


Waiting for the bus after today's practice.


After skating, it was time to eat. After a lot of indecision, we settles on a Korean Grill (there's only hundredes within a stone's throw from the hotel). It was nice to experience genuine Korean culture, you know, the excessively spicy food (Alex D'mello and I love it!). Jesse Pauley, who's eating habits were described to me as someone conservative is really indulging himself with all the different foods. It's great because people are teaching us how to speak Korean, what the manners are, certain philosophies, and about the history of the area.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

We've Finally Skated

We skated on the track today…at last. We kept hearing that the track is bumpy, but looking at it, you wouldn’t think so. Once we got onto the track though, we realized that it is monster to tame, and a fast one at that.

We almost left AJ behind at the hotel because he was ultra late for the bus. But he was lucky to make it to the track. This was after a nice dinner at the Outback restaurant in town which served amazing food and drinks including Fruit-Ade.


The team before lunch at the Outback.

During today’s practice, we were definitely not at our best. Bill Begg was coaching the German team while we were skating. We also skated with the Spanish and the Argentina teams and they are definitely skating fast. While we skated, the entire USA team was out on the road in force looking very good.Good ‘old Jesse tripped himself up in his skates in the corner and went down. Jade tried to jump over him. As Jade was going down, I tried to jump over him and went down. That was a nice little incident. Before this one, I was skating around and all of a sudden, the track workers decided to connect come electrical lines across the track during our practice. They warned us when we were maybe 10-meters away. I was the only one who could not make it off the track, so I tried to hop over the wire. As I was hopping, they lifted the wire and I got all tangled up.


Bill Begg talking to us as soon as we arrived.


Argentina's legend Andrea Gonzales.


That's me during my flying lap. It wasn't too 'flying'; it was a sad 18.3. Mind you I was skating about 85-90%. Bill Begg was saying that if we want to be in contention for medals, we've got to have our laps into the low 16's.


Chinese-Taipei skated after us. They came out in full force with very nice suits.

The best part of the championship so far is how well organized the championship is. After our practice, we were taken to a restaurant and greeted by local people. They paid for our meal, gave us gifts, and will come out to cheer for us when we race. It’s amazing so far.


There was a sign welcoming us. They ate with us, dined us, were very nuice, and they're coming to watch us race!

The plan for tomorrow is pretty basic: sleep, chill, and practice in the early afternoon, and then more sleep and chill. We get to skate with the Colombian team tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

First Practice Will be Tonight

Good morning (to most of you it is goodnight). We've had a ton of 'chill-out' time so far, but that will change once we start racing. I was looking over the (amazing and well done) booklet that we each received and noticed a crazy schedule that will have many of us at the track for almost the entire day.

Once the racing begins, I think that we'll be at the hotel pretty much only to sleep. That means the videos (linked in the box on the right) will become less frequent and the blog will take a back seat. Racing is the priority, and I won't be touching the press room this year like last year.

The plan for today is pretty simple: team meeting, lunch, buying groceries, our first practice (with Belgium, Germany, and Argentina), and then a reception courtesy of the organizing committee- they're coming to our hotel to visit us and they're bringing us some food.

Trip #1 to the Track

Our second day here in Korea's been nice. We got to see the track, and it is amazing. The most important thing that I have to say about these championships is that even though we're 4 days away from the first races, the organizers have their act put together. What I've heard is that they are wishing to apply for the 2011 world championships with the promise of having the facility completely indoors.

We missed our practice today because of the rain. We spent most of the evening playing cards and just chatting. We'll try to skate the track tomorrow.


Driving to the track, the streets were covered with posters, flags, and banners promoting the world championships. The bus ride from the hotel to the track is about 20 minutes. For about 15 of those minutes, we were constantly passing all the flags and posters. It was quite impressive to see a 5 storey poster of Jessica Smith.


The beautiful track- it is an amazing facility. The world championships organizers have their act T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R. Everything is ready. With the city converted into a skating mania place, vendors settling in, skate shops with a stock of wheels and clothing, the lawn in the middle of the track a beautiful green- we're ready to be part of the greatest show on earth.


MPC wheels are said to be red-hot here in Korea. Our first practice tonight was cancelled due to the rain, so instead we had the chance to visit Seoul thanks to Kevin Noh.


While we were walking around, we found a 400-meter track with skaters training. It was funny and strange for us to see a dozen skaters on the track...just skating around. They've got TONS of skaters here.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Travel Day

We're here (not that you didn't know that already). A relaxing but sleepless flight with two stop-overs including a meeting with the Chilean team brought us to Korea.


We flew right over Duluth. The funny thing is that I will be 'flying' to Duluth in my car in a few weeks.


Everyone is excited to be going to Korea.


Flying into Japan.


Go sushi! Mmm, it was good (and bloody expensive).


The beautiful sun setting as we approach Korea.

Once in Korea, we were greeted by a team of translaters and guides. One of my good friends, Kevin Noh was also there. He lived in Toronto last year, in fact, him and I were teammates last year in the 24-hour Montreal inline relay. Kevin is going to be spending time with our team, helping guide us through the journey that is called the 2006 World Roller Speed Skating Championships in Anyang, Korea.


Canadian team manager Tyler Congdon with the welcoming party in Korea.

I have no idea what Anyang looks like because we flew by day and arrived by dark. We're going to sleep a good solid 10 hours or so and then head to to the track to pick up our accreditation and watch the USA and Colombian teams practicing.

We're Here

We've arrived- 30 hours of no/ very little sleep! All went really well with the travel. We were not on the same flight as the American team; I was mis-informed. I found out they arrived on Friday. More to come tomorrow. Goodnight (or good day to you).

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Lock Tight

Here's a good little quote from Alex Perrie from an email that I just received: 'It's 4.30am I'm getting ready to leave for the airport, but first I wanted toremind you to bring your locktight LOLCheers Alex'. He's reminded me quite a few times to make sure that I've got some lock-tight so that my skates don't come apart like they have in the past. My mom and brother are driving me to the airport in 40 minutes...bye.


My skates are ready to go. My cat is in the picture too; it is drinking water.