Dec 17 - US Olympic 1000m Short Track Trials

Heading out to support our US Olympic Speed Skating (Short Track) team by attending 1000m Trials today. They are being held at the Olympic Oval in Kearns (a little south and west of Salt Lake). It's the same Olympic Oval where the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics were held and where the 2014 Speed Skate were held (which I attended for one day).

The 1500m and 500m trials where held on Friday and Saturday with several skaters wrapping up positions on the team by winning that event. The winners of today's event will also go to the Olympics and the remaining members of the team will be chosen by points earned by finishing positions in all the events.

Today's event will be skated in two rounds. Since there are 16 men and 16 women vying for a spot on the team, there will be 2 rounds of quarterfinals, semi-finals and finals. Points accumulated and the top 3 finishers of the 1000m will be announced. Followed by, and more importantly for these athletes, the Olympic team.

The races were full of speed, great passing moves and yes, some crashes. One of the Men's Final had to be restarted to 3 of the men crashing.

Very exciting day!

And congrats to the men and women who earned the chance to continue their chase their ultimate Olympic Dream! 

- JR Celski, John-Henry Krueger, Ryan Pivirotto, Aaron Tran, and Thomas Hong.

- Maame Biney, Lana Gehring, and Jessica Kooreman.

Go Team USA!!