On the fast track to speed skating

C A N A D A   G A M E S

Dalhousie student Evan Taras has taken the fast lane to speed skating competition.

Last February, watching the 2010 Olympic Winter Games with his dad, he was struck with the idea that he’d like to give speed skating a try. On skates since the age of four, a hockey player and a rugby player, he figured he had the strength, power and endurance the sport requires.

And so he gave short track—the only option in Nova Scotia until very recently—a try. The closest speed skating club is based at Dartmouth’s Grey Arena.

Rugby

And then the Canada Games Oval opened in December. The first time Mr. Taras stepped on the smooth surface of the oval, he knew long track speed skating was for him.

“With short track, you’re crowded in and you’re close to the boards, so it’s intimidating,” says Mr. Taras, who made the cut for Nova Scotia’s long track speed skating team for Canada Games exactly a month after his first skate on the oval. At the age of 18, it will be his second appearance at a Canada Games; he was a member of Nova Scotia’s rugby team for the 2009 games in Prince Edward Island. At Dal, he plays on the Tigers’ rugby team, the Nova Scotia University Rugby champs four years in a row.

In long track, skaters compete in pairs, each to their own lane, and changing lanes every lap to equalize the distance. In terms of technique, skaters are bent at the waist to reduce air resistance, with one arm on the back, the other arm pumping. The lower the crouch, the more the leg can extend to the side during the push, lengthening the time spent applying force to the ice.

'Two stones'

“For me, (long track) is so much more calming. You’re by yourself and it’s not as stressful.”

He prefers the shorter distances of long track—100 and 500 metres—and is looking to medal. “The distances are short enough that you want to give 100 per cent from the first stride to the last,” he says, adding he finds the longer distances (3,000 and 5,000 metres) exhausting and painful “as if two stones have suddenly grown in your thighs.”

During the Canada Games, long track competition will take place during week one on the oval, a facility Mr. Taras hopes the city can keep. “It would mean so much to this sport and give us the chance to put members on the national team. Plus, everyone likes it so much. It’s a wonderful thing for Halifax.”

Dalhousie is a proud Sapphire Sponsor of the 2011 Canada Games. For more:

• Visit our Canada Games website with links to all Games-related Dal News stories
• Read first-person Games accounts and get Dalhousie results at our blog
• Contribute your Games photos to our Flickr group.