Friday, March 19, 2010

WK All-Round in Heerenveen

Written by T Dobbin
Tomorrow is the first day of the World All-Round competition held in Thialf stadium in Heerenveen. It's only the men that skate tomorrow with the first two events of four to get underway at 16.30 with the 500 meter followed by the 5,000 meters. After Shane set his new personal best time in the World Cup in Salt Lake City in December of 2009 for the 5,000 meter, this put Shane in the third and final grouping to determine the pairs for tomorrow.

With being int he final grouping, the draw was completed tonight and Shane will be skating tomorrow the 5,000 meter with Olympic Champion Sven Kramer from the Netherlands. They are paired together in pair number 10 out of 12 with Shane starting on the inner lane. See below the list of pairs for the 5,000 meter.

Pair Number 1 - Jeff Kitura CAN / Justin Warsylewicz CAN
Pair Number 2 - 24 Joel Eriksson SWE / Zbigniew Brodka POL
Pair Number 3 - Matteo Anesi ITA / Joshua Lose AUS
Pair Number 4 - Konrad Niedzwiedzki POL / Ted-Jan Bloemen NED
Pair Number 5 - Marco Weber GER / Lucas Makowsky CAN
Pair Number 6 - Mathieu Giroux CAN / Jonathan Kuck USA
Pair Number 7 - Hiroki Hirako JPN / Luca Stefani ITA
Pair Number 8 - Trevor Marsicano USA / Wouter Olde Heuvel NED
Pair Number 9 - Johan Röjler SWE / Håvard Bøkko NOR
Pair Number 10 - Shane Dobbin NZL / Sven Kramer NED
Pair Number 11 - Patrick Beckert GER / Ivan Skobrev RUS
Pair Number 12 - Jan Blokhuijsen NED / Sverre Haugli NOR

In the 500 meter Shane is paired with German Marco Weber in pair number four. All results will be live on http://www.knsb.nl/wk/english/live-results/ as well as all results, drawings and updates through the weekend. http://www.knsb.nl/wk/

For those countries that have eurosport, the World All-Round Championships will be on tomorrow live as well as on Sunday, http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/speed-skating/

It's Shane first World All-Round Championships and it's going to be good experience and a chance to finish the 2009-2010 ice season on a high. Keep posted for results.