Grace's speed skating in South Korea

Grace recently travelled to South Korea to participate in the Namwon Korea Speed Open.  The event is an open invitation to speed skating clubs around the world and this year attracted over 1000 skaters from 10 countries throughout Asia and the Pacific.  Each skater races for their club, however, only 2 skaters from each club can participate in a race.  With each club in the Asian region having hundreds of members the competition is at Speed World’s Championship level.  The competition lasted for 7 days and was split between 2 different skating tracks.  We travelled with 6 other skaters and their families from around NZ. 

Grace’s goals for this trip were simply to be able to experience the Speed World’s standard ‘Vesmarco’ track surface in order to begin her preparation to achieve her goal of making it to the Speed World Championships in the future.  We do not have Vesmarco tracks in NZ so it was a huge learning curve for her.  The speeds that the skaters achieve on these surfaces (and the accidents that they have) are frightening.  The skating technique is quite different on this surface and therefore race tactics are also different especially for a lone skater that isn’t part of a team.

After a challenging start having had a head cold as we arrived in Namwon (plus having been off training for 6 weeks over February and March due to a concussion), Grace gained confidence on the Vesmarco track and secured a 17th place in a 10km elimination.  The competition then shifted to the outdoor road track for the final 3 days.  This type of track is more familiar to our NZ skaters and Grace showed her strength gaining a Silver and a Bronze Medal in the 10km points and 15km elimination races respectively.

South Korea was a great place to visit.  The people are so friendly and were genuinely thrilled to have us there.  We were extremely well looked after and felt very safe during our stay. Grace is eager to return to enable more training on the Vesmarco track.  So the fundraising begins again….