Sportsbeat reporter tries his hand at short track speed skating

MAKE no mistake about it, short track speed skating is terrifying.

TERROR: Sportsbeat's Gerard Meagher is put through his paces at the National Ice Arena in Nottingham

To the blissfully ignorant, the ‘short track' bit hints at some sort of leniency. A diluted form of the real thing, speed skating's younger sibling and surely easier for the novice to, if not excel, then at least survive.

Alas, no.

After five petrified minutes on the ice I claim to be no expert but having watched the pros in all their glory, short track speed skating seems to essentially involve torpedoing around the rink without really ever going in a straight line.

Such are the speeds achieved by these lycra-clad lunatics that by the time they've successfully negotiated one corner, it's already time for another.

They hurtle round the bends at eye-watering pace and at death-defying angles - they could lean out and kiss the ice before moving on to the next corner of the 111m circuit - seemingly just a single kink in the ice away from catastrophe.

And in the history of the sport there have been plenty of those.