ISU

Get used to hearing the name Alyson Charles. The 20-year-old has enjoyed a stunning rookie season on the ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating circuit and is at the vanguard of a youthful charge to shake up the sport’s established order.

One year on from having the world’s attention thrust upon her at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games, Maame Biney (USA) is mightily relieved to just be one of a number of highly talented young Short Track Speed Skaters attempting to break into the upper echelons of the sport.

The Germans are coming. That is the message coming quietly but confidently from team leader Anna Seidel and new national coach Stuart Horsepool as the penultimate ISU Short Track Speed Skating World Cup of the 2018/19 season got underway in Dresden, Germany.

Mother-of-two and sprint sensation Martina Valcepina will be the beating heart of an Italian team primed to exploit home advantage at this weekend’s ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating as the sport’s elite return to Torino for the first time in two years.

Short Track Speed Skating star Vladislav Bykanov is driven by a poignant ambition every time he steps on to the ice. 

With two World Cup stops to go, Suzanne Schulting (NED) tops the overall world ranking, unbeaten in the Ladies’ 1000m, and comes into the last leg of the season full of confidence after dominating the European Championships in front of her home fans.

For Sofia Prosvirnova (RUS) the 2019 ISU European Short Track Championships summed up all that makes her sport one of the most thrilling rides out there. Dominant displays were jumbled up with dramatic falls, crucial refereeing decisions and healthy slices of luck, all of which resulted in favorites winning, returning warriors surprising themselves and young guns coming to the fore.

Short Track spent an age in Long Track’s shadow – but now the Netherlands are back in style. Discipline Manager Wilf O’Reilly explains how it happened.

New skates, coaches, countries, languages, techniques, mental focus and tattoos – the season following an Olympic Games allows athletes to try new things, and skaters on the ISU World Cup Short Track circuit take every chance to test what could make them go even faster at the next Games.

Olympic 1000m champion Samuel Girard (CAN) says other sports should watch and learn from Short Track Speed Skating’s introduction of a Mixed Relay, in which men and women compete together over 2000m.

As 2018 ends, few Short Track Speed Skaters can look back at a year as eventful as Choi Min Jeong’s (KOR).

Over the past three seasons, Kazakhstan has begun to feature ever more prominently in Short Track’s elite events, after forming a successful training partnership with the Netherlands. A decade ago, few people in Kazakhstan had even heard of the sport, but with Kazakh skaters starting to win ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating medals with increasing regularity, the country is now preparing to host its first ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating event in Almaty this weekend.

Three months ago, the mere thought of competing in a Short Track race was enough to make Elise Christie (GBR) question everything she’d spent the past 16 years working towards.

From Wu Dajing’s (CHN) astonishing world-record performance at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics to Steven Bradbury (AUS) winning Olympic gold as the last man standing at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, Short Track Speed Skating has drawn up plenty of epic moments which have captivated fans and skaters across the world.

It’s a measure of Sjinkie Knegt’s (NED) supreme mastery of the 1500m that the world record holder and Olympic silver medalist can cruise to a World Cup gold medal and yet still claim to be in “not great shape”.