ISU

With the 2021 ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships getting underway on March 5 in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, let’s take a look at the highlights of the last four editions…

Bringing his artistic skills on to the ice in more ways than one, Itzhak de Laat hopes to become the Netherlands’ next big Short Track Speed Skating name, wearing his self-designed helmets.

Growing up in Le Havre, France, Sebastien Lepape was ten years old when a friend introduced him to Short Track Speed Skating. Lepape was hooked immediately and pursued no other sport from that moment. All he wanted was to get faster and faster on the ice – which he did.

Two-time Olympic Short Track Speed Skating medalist Martina Valcepina has seen a lot in her career but to train and compete in a COVID-19-safe bubble is a new challenge.

The Netherlands’ Short Track Speed Skaters brought their teammate Lara van Ruijven, who tragically passed away last year, with them on the ice as competition resumed at the ISU European Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Gdansk, Poland.

Poland’s Natalia Maliszewska celebrated her 500m silver medal on home ice like a champion, feeling the support from her compatriots despite the empty stands at Gdansk’s Hala Olivia arena.

As a challenging 2020 draws to a close the world’s Short Track Speed Skating stars can look back on a year that offered a chance to deviate from just training and competing – be it fixing that little technical detail, finishing a box set of movies or spending extra time with the family – to come back stronger for 2021.

This year has placed unprecedented stresses and strains on people’s mental health across the globe. It’s been no different for the world’s best Short Track Speed Skaters but Poland’s Kamila Stormowska feels lucky to have had the tools in place to deal with such significant challenges, as she explains here, in the first of a new series.

Getting in shape for Short Track Speed Skating is a delicate balancing act – so achieving the right ratio of training, stretching, rehab and rest is vital, says Slovakia’s Petra Rusnakova.

Short Track Speed Skating is all about overtaking – but it’s a lot more complicated than it might look, according to Israel’s speed demon, Vladislav Bykanov. “You can’t always plan it,” the 31-year-old explains. “It can be hard to find gaps, so overtaking has to be about instinct.

How do you train for elite sport when a pandemic has threatened your entire season? Simple, according to rising Canadian Short Track Speed Skating star Courtney Lee Sarault: you team up with the opposite gender, start pouring your energy into racing a three-time Olympic medal-winning compatriot and, if all else fails, strap on hockey skates.

There is a simple reason why Italy continues to defy the odds and capture Short Track Speed Skating medals on the biggest sporting stage of them all. It is all down to team culture, according to veteran skater Tommaso Dotti.

Pumping pop music is the order of the day for most Short Track Speed Skating events – but Itzhak de Laat isn’t listening in.

Short Track Speed Skaters are an interesting bunch so it’s no wonder that when they hang up their blades, they end up in a wide variety of innovative careers…

Kristen Santos (USA) broke through in Nagoya for her first individual ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating medal, claiming bronze in the Ladies’ 1000m.