British Olympic speed skater practices down his local street

Short Track Speed Skating Vancouver 2010 Post a comment

Posted: Friday 8th January 2010 | 23:25

Gerard Meagher Sportsbeat

VANCOUVER-bound short track speed skater Tom Iveson is taking full advantage of the British big freeze - with some alternative training.

NORMAL SURROUNDINGS: Tom Iveson will be part of a seven-strong British short track speed skating team in Vancouver (Getty Images)

Iveson was named yesterday in a seven-strong team for next month's Winter Olympics. The squad is headed by Nicky Gooch, the last British speed skater to medal, striking bronze in Lillehammer 16 years ago.

And he celebrated by skating down the middle of his ice-covered road - to the bemusement of his neighbours.

"It wasn't the typical ice we usually skate on, it was more like hard compressed snow but I gave it a go," he said.

"I put on a pair of hockey skates and skated down the road. I managed to get most of the way down and back up again without the neighbours laughing too much!

"The temperature in the ice rink gets a lot colder with the snow outside, so there's just no where to get warm, it's just arctic at the moment."

Temperature tonight in Nottingham is minus four, 13 degrees colder than Vancouver.

Hat-tip: English Institute of Sport - www.eis2win.co.uk

Comments

Skating down the street

Submitted by Igor Tanastikov (not verified) on Sat, 01/09/2010 - 17:30.

It may be churlish to begrudge our Olympic hopefuls the chance to use these unusual weather conditions for some extra practice. However, after narrowly avoiding contact with a bobsleigh flying down the ramp of a multi-storey car park and a ski-jumper coming off the sloping roof of a house, I wonder if a line needs to be drawn somewhere.