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Made in Manitoba

Provincial skaters dominate long-track speed skating team.

When it comes to speed skating, Manitoba is a force to be reckoned with.

Of the 16 long-track speed skaters on Canada's Olympic team this year, six are from Manitoba. That's more than any other province. The Olympic team is rounded out by 10 short-track speed skaters, most of whom are from Quebec.

While Cindy Klassen is the province's most accomplished star, other Olympic team members from Manitoba, including Clara Hughes, Brittany Schussler, Shannon Rempel, Kyle Parrott and Mike Ireland, have also made their mark.

They are the latest in a long line of world-class competitors that includes Sylvia Burka, an Olympian in the 1970s, and Susan Auch who won medals in 1988 and 1994.

So what accounts for the province's speed skating prowess?

Todd Landon, provincial coach with the Manitoba Speed Skating Association, isn't so sure. "That's the million dollar question," says Landon. "If someone finds the answer, I'll pay a million dollars to buy it from them."

Nonetheless, Landon suspects it may have something to do with the fact that Manitoba has a more centralized speed skating program than some other provinces.

Manitoba's speed skating system is comprised of six clubs, including three in Winnipeg. All are connected to the Manitoba Speed Skating Association, which has 288 members, including volunteers and officials.

Young skaters are introduced to speed skating through their club teams. If they are able to hit certain time standards by the time they are 14 years of age, they are eligible to join the MSSA's provincial development program, which is led by Landon.

"Manitoba is one of the provinces lucky enough to have a provincial coach on staff that is available to work with the athletes," says Landon, who has been provincial coach for three years. Other provinces, such as Ontario, leave the coaching to the club teams.

Parrott, Schussler, Rempel and Ireland all benefitted from the provincial development program. Klassen made the shift to speed skating from hockey, while Hughes started her athletic career as a cyclist. Landon says there are more speed skating champions in development.

"We had a wave of skaters move out to Calgary (home of the national training centre) who are either on the team or will be competing (at the world level) in another four years. The skaters here now are 14 to 18, and they are about eight years away."

In addition to the coaching program, there is one other theory about why Manitoba produces so many skaters: winter.

Most youngsters are introduced to speed skating in indoor rinks, but the only long-track oval in the province is an outdoor facility, named, appropriately enough, after Susan Auch and located at the Cindy Klassen Recreation Centre, on Sargent Avenue.

"We do have access to that oval from mid-December to March," says Landon. "We have skaters on it just about every night. Different clubs use it and I run the provincial program on it five or six days a week," says Landon.

So does skating on the oval in freezing temperatures produce faster skaters?

"Some people will tell you there is something magical in the Manitoba wind, that it instills some sort of character in you that pushes you further and faster than anyone else," Landon says, laughing.

For more information about speed skating in Manitoba, visit the Manitoba Speed Skating Association website at mbspeedskating.org.

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	About Wave Wave is published six times a year by the Winnipeg Health Region in cooperation with the Winnipeg Free Press. It is available at newsstands, hospitals and clinics throughout Winnipeg, as well as McNally Robinson Books. Read the January / February 2010 issue of Wave