From the Games - Liam McFarlane

Over the past few years of training at the Olympic Oval in Calgary, I’ve slowly come to the realization that Short Track and Long Track Speed Skating are completely different sports. Competing here at FISU games has added to my opinion even more so.


Very few Athletes do both anymore. That’s not to say there aren’t a few that have performed well doing both, but Canada has such a great deal of depth in each sport respectively for any one particular person to do exceptionally well at a World Class Level doing both sports. It takes a substantial amount of hours of training weekly to be a good long tracker, refining technique and energy output with power and endurance so that one can have the fastest time over all other competitors; and for short trackers, maximizing strength and agility with track patterns and race strategies. Wherein, unlike in Long Track, it is not always the fastest person who wins a Short Track race.


For the few of us Short Trackers that train at the Olympic Oval in Calgary, we get to see Long Trackers train daily. I even share a locker room with some of them. If we’re lucky though, we may even get the chance to make it out for the occasional day of racing a year in support our fellow Long Track Athletes. For those of our Short Track Team based out of Eastern Canada, they don’t get the same opportunity as we do. Their Team trains out in Montreal and the Long Track team trains out in Quebec City. Very few of them knew anything about each other. Going to an event like FISU gave us all the opportunity to fall back on some old relationships, and even start new ones. We ended up staying together as an entire Speed Skating Team for once, sharing rooms that included both Long and Short Track athletes. I've never had an experience like that before. Even in 2003 at Canada Winter Games in Campbellton, New Brunswick we didn't get the same opportunity. We were separated from the Long Track skaters, and as a result I didn't get to see much of them the entire.


Even though I train every day in Calgary I’m not particularly close with any of the long trackers. Especially those that train out of Quebec City and only come into Calgary a few times a year to compete. We were fortunate while in Harbin, China to mix a lot more with the Canadian Long Track Team. I definitely know a few of them on a more personal level than I did before I came to China.


Talking with them, I think they notice as well how different our two sports really all. Both sides got the chance to see the mental and physical preparation it takes to be a long track skater or a short track skater.


Looking back, we all came from the same roots; be it the small club that only had access to Short Track during the hockey season, the club that waited around all year for the outdoor oval to freeze over or the lucky ones that interchange between the two depending on the season. Since then we've grown apart with different disciplines, routines, technic and equipment. It's great to have this opportunity to fall back on these old roots.

Liam McFarlane- Team Canada Short Track Speed Skating