FREDRICKS LEADS TEAM USA WITH GOLD IN HEERENVEEN
TEAM USA WRAPS FALL WORLD CUP TOUR WITH FOUR PODIUMS

HEERENVEEN, NED - Tucker Fredricks (Janesville, WI) skated to a gold medal victory in the 500m on opening day of the Essent ISU World Cup 3 in Heerenveen, NED. Posting a time of 34.98, Fredricks was followed by Joji Kato (JPN) 35.07, and Tae-Bum Mo (KOR) at 35.08. Joey Lindsey (Las Vegas, NV) placed 17th at 35.55.
 
"I'm really happy that I'm continuing to skate well despite having heavy legs. It was probably one of the most solid races I've skated in a while," said Fredricks.

"It was a strong effort today, with really no mistakes,” added U.S. National Sprint Team Head Coach Ryan Shimabukuro on Friday. “He did nothing special physically, but just skated technically solid the whole race."

Saturday Highlights

Fredricks again led Team USA in Heerenveen on Saturday with a 4th place finish in the 500m (2) event. "I feel like I skated fairly well today,” said Fredricks. “I'm glad that the Fall World Cups are done, because I need a break from racing now. I'm excited to go home and start training again for the second half of the season." Fredricks currently ranks 3rd in overall World Cup standings.

Heather Richardson (High Point, N.C.) finished 7th in Saturday’s 500m (2) with a time of 38.43. "I'm happy with my 500m today,” said Richardson. “That the speed is starting to come back, but I'm also happy to be going home and to get back to training again."
 
“We really worked on getting Heather’s skating technically better this week and it showed, but she really needs a solid block of training over the next month or so to get her specific strength back which will help her in the end of her races," added Shimabukuro.

Sunday Highlights

Richardson led Team USA’s Long Track team at yesterday’s final day of World Cup competition. The reigning 1000m World Cup champion posted a time of 1:16.23 to take 6th place, narrowly missing the podium.
 
“I’m happy with my 1000m today, it was even better than yesterday, but I am excited to get home and train,” said Richardson following Sunday’s competition. She now ranks 10th in overall ISU 1000m World Cup standings.
 

“This was Heather’s best race of the World Cup trip, and it definitely shows that she is improving and getting back to her top form,” said Shimabukuro. “To miss the medal by less than a tenth of a second was disappointing, but also very promising that she’s right on track for a full recovery (from early season knee surgery), and looking forward to the World Sprint Championships in Calgary.”
 
The 2011 Long Track World Cup team has won a total of five medals during the Fall 2011 World Cup season.
 
The team now travels back to the U.S. to train and prepare for the 2012 U.S. Speedskating Championships, December 13-18th at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee, WI.
 
Full results from the Essent ISU World Cup 3 in Heerenveen are available here. Additional photos highlights from Heerenveen are available on our Facebookphoto page.

Fans can also catch a rebroadcast of the Heerenveen World Cup here.

We look forward to welcoming home Team USA today after a long fall World Cup trip! Congratulations on your five medal fall World Cup tour!

14 WORLD CUP MEDALS FOR TEAM USA AND COUNTING

                            Gold        Silver        Bronze
Long Track            1              3                  1

Short Track           2               2                5

Team USA Total: 14 Medals and Counting!

Congratulations!

TRIPLE PODIUM WEEKEND FOR TEAM USA IN NAGOYA

Silver for J.R. Celski and Bronze for Katherine Reutter 1000m; Bronze for Lana Gehring in 1500m

NAGOYA, Japan – Team USA skated to three podium performances at Saturday’s Korean Air ISU Short Track World Cup 3 in Nagoya, Japan.
 
J.R. Celski (Federal Way, WA) was in a close race in the 1000m (1) final, finishing second, posting 1:29.828, behind current World Cup 1000m leader Yoon-Gy Kwak (KOR) with a time of 1:29.743. Korea’s Yi Ra Seo was third (1:29.899) and Canada’s Olivier Jean finished fourth (1:30.090). This is Celski’s second medal of the 2011-12 World Cup season.
 
“I felt really good in that race. I knew I had some tough competition with the two Korean skaters and the Canadian. I knew it was going to be a game of tactics, so I stayed towards the front and Yoon-Gy got in front of me and just outskated me and outraced me. I’m really happy with how I did,”

said Celski .
 
Katherine Reutter (Champaign, IL) added another medal to her 2011-12 season total, now at 3, with a bronze in the 1000m(1) ladies final. Reutter posted a time of 1:32.945, behind distance winner and World Cup leader Yui Sakai (JPN) 1:32.713, and Elise Christie (GBR) at 1:32.786.
 
“Racing today was a true testament to the ability of Team USA to fight for every single medal that we earned out there,” said Reutter. “Racing conditions and ice conditions were pretty difficult today, but USA persevered and everybody came though with a spectacular performance.”
 
Lana Gehring (Glenview, IL) won bronze in close race in the 1500m posting 2:24.721. Arianna Fontana (ITA) won the distance with a time of 2:24.329, Ha-Ri Cho (KOR) was second at 2:24.423. Emily Scott (Springfield, MO) placed 6th (2:25.061), and Jessica Smith (Melvindale, MI) finished 9th (2:33.026). Today’s podium marks Gehring’s second World Cup medal for the season.
 
Travis Jayner (Midland, MI) finished 6th in the 1500m (2:15.892). Jinkyu Noh (KOR) won the distance today with a time of 2:14.941.
 
The men’s relay squad (Kyle Carr (Peachtree City, GA), Celski, John-Henry Krueger (Pittsburgh, PA), and Jayner), skated strong and fought hard in Sautrday’s 5000m relay semifinal round with China, Canada and Great Britain. Team USA qualified for Sunday’s Relay final with Korea, Russia, China and Japan, but placed fifth in the final, following a challenging and crowded race.

Gehring finished 6th overall in the ladies 1000m (2) with a time of 1:33.329, and Scott placed 11th posting a 1:32.985 in the C Final. Smith placed 8th overall in the 500m, and Jonathan Garcia (Houston. TX) landed 8th overall in Sunday’s 500m, posting a 42.898 in the B Final.

Following their triple podium performance in Nagoya, Team USA’s short track athletes have tallied nine World Cup medals to date on the fall 2011 World Cup circuit.
 
Please visit here for complete results from the Korean Air ISU Short Track World Cup 3 in Nagoya. Rebroadcasts of all races are available here.

Team USA now travels to Shanghai, CHN for World Cup 4, Dec. 9-11. Live broadcast of racing in Shanghai will be available here. Please visit www.isu.org for additional information and a schedule for World Cup 4.

Good luck Team USA!

REGISTRATION OPEN FOR 2012 U.S. SPEEDSKATING

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

DEADLINE IS 12/8

Registration for the US Speedskating Championships is now available online here.

Please note, the deadline for registration is Thursday, December 8th.

HAVE YOU VISITED THE NEW USSPEEDSKATING.ORG?
 

Have you had an opportunity to visit USSpeedskating.org’s temporary new website? We have moved our website to a temporary, and improved home on USOC’s TeamUSA.org platform. The new location will be home for all things US Speedskating while we continue development of our new website which is scheduled to launch in August 2012.

Please join us for a brief video tour of the new site here

There’s no new web address to remember, just visit www.usspeedskating.org and you will be immediately directed to everything you are looking for – from membership renewals to athlete profiles

to event results – in an simple and easy to

navigate site.

Thank you to the USOC for hosting our new site and providing ongoing technical assistance.

Please note, this temporary site is still a work in progress, and content is continually being updated and added. We welcome your input and suggestions. If you have any questions, suggestions, comments or concerns with US Speedskating’s temporary website, please contact Linda Jager (ljager@usspeedskating.org).

Thank you for your patience while we continue development of US Speedskating’s new website.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

FAST TIMES ON THE ICE

IN ROSEVILLE

LONG TRACK AMERICAN CUP SEASON KICKS OFF AT The GUIDANT JOHN ROSE OVAL

Dano Barrett competes on the outdoor Guidant John Rose

Oval this weekend for the start of the 2011-12 US Speedskating American Cup Series 

Long track skaters from across the U.S. traveled to the Guidant John Rose Oval in Roseville, MN for the start to the US Speedskating American Cup seires. Thank you to all athletes, families, volunteers, coaches, officials and event organizers for a great start to the 2011-12 long track domestic season.
 
Congratulations to the following podium finishers at this weekend’s American Cup 1 in Roseville, MN.
 
Ladies 500m (1)
1) Jerica Tandiman (42.47), 2) Rebekah Dyrud (42.86), 3) Leah Lambert (43.25)
 
Ladies 500m (2)
1) Leah Lambert (43.46), 2) Jerica Tandiman (43.69), 3) Rebekah Dyrud (44.40)
 
Ladies 1000m
1) Leah Lambert (1:27.49), 2) Jerica Tandiman (1:29.08), 3) Rebekah Dyrud (1:29.17)
 
Ladies 3000m
1)Susan Vehe (4:45.88), 2) Lisa Hambly (4:53.96), 3) Rebekah Dyrud (4:56.24)
 
Ladies 1500m
1) Susan Vehe (2:14.62), 2) Rebekah Dyrud (2:15.40), 3) Lisa Hambly (2:15.82)
 
Men’s 500m (1)
1) Mac Blumel (37.46), 2) Mike Blumel (37.62), Clay Cholewinski (37.80)
 
Men’s 500m (2)
1) Mike Bumel (37.98), 2) Mac Blumel (38.01), 3) Alex Mark (38.96)
 
Men’s 1000m
1) Mike Blumel (1:15.69), 2) Mac Blumel (1:16.28), 3) Alex Ochowicz (1:16.37)
 
Men’s 1500m
1) Alex Ochowicz (2:00.89), 2) Jeffrey Swider-Peltz (2:00.98), 3) Nick Frank (2:01.27
 
Men’s 3000m
1) Chris Anderson (4:24.37), 2) Nathan Tonkinson (4:34.68), 3) Steven Hartman (4:34.77)
 
Men’s 5000m
1) Jeffrey Swider-Peltz (7:24.00), 2) Alexander Hopp (7:31.52), 3) Nick Frank (7:33.12)
 
For complete race results from Roseville, please visit the following links:

Day 1 Results
 

Day 2 Results

NEWS FROM THE US SPEEDSKATING

MARKETING DEPARTMENT

Join the Under Armour Digital Scavenger Hunt on Wednesday

US Speedskating is partnering with Under Armour to lead you through a “Charged” Up Scavenger Hunt on our Twitter feed https://twitter.com/USSpeedskating



What:  Digital Scavenger Hunt
 

When: Wednesday, December 7, 2011
 

Start Time: 10 a.m. (Pacific) / 11 a.m. (Mountain) / 12 p.m. (Central) / 1 p.m. (Eastern)
 

Where: https://twitter.com/USSpeedskating with Twitter handle: #ChargedSH
 

Directions:

• Clues will be given out every 30 minutes. Each hint will lead you closer to the final answer.  Once you have found the answer to a Hint, tweet it @USSpeedskating with #ChargedSH. The first person to find each hint will win a prize. Then from those prize winners, we will randomly choose our grand prize winner. So keep checking back every thirty minutes for the next hint.

Prizes:

• Grand Prize: $200 Gift Certificate to UnderArmour.com
• Hint Prize: prizes to be given out to the first person to answer each hint. Prizes will be autographed posters, USS merchandise, etc.

Schedule:

• All times are MST

•    Hint #1 @ 11:00 a.m. via Twitter
•    Hint #2 @ 11:30 a.m. via Twitter
•    Hint #3 @ 12:00 a.m. via Twitter
•    Hint #4 @ 12:30 a.m. via Twitter
•    Winner Announced @ 2:00 p.m. via Twitter

We hope to see you there! Tell your friends!

Holiday Shopping?
Are you having trouble figuring out what to get that difficult cousin or even your mom for the Holidays? Find the perfect gift for everyone at our online store-- http://www.usspeedskatingshop.com/

US SPEEDSKATING

FACEBOOK FAN DRIVE

WINNER ANNOUNCED

Our Facebook Fan Drive has come to an end. It started Oct. 1 and went through Nov. 30. Over these two months, we were able to increase our Facebook fan base by over 1500 new fans. To keep the excitement up over the two months of the drive, we had various contests. These contest were designed to help our fans better their chances at winning the grand prize. During one contest one of our fans was able to get 75 of his friends to become fans of US Speedskating. Since then, his friends have become active participants of daily promotions that we have on Facebook. That fan’s name is Chris Sheehy, and because of his dedication to US Speedskating during this Fan drive, he is our lucky winner of the trip to the Salt Lake City Long Track World Cup

in January.

Sheehy said, “I worked hard for my nephew Brandon Sheehy, a short track speedskater at the Virginia Speedskating club. Also, I love this sport so much that I want to spread the excitement to my friends.” Thank you Chris, and to all of our members who helped us make this fan drive a success.

FOLLOW US SPEEDSKATING