We had a great time in Vancouver and a great experience at the Olympic Games! Sophie Muir managed to do both her events in sea level pb times. Elma de Vries placed 11th in her 5k and unfortunatly missed the team pursuit. Just one week later we were back in action.

Efurt sprint world cup:
Sophie Muir contested the first 500 in a jet-lagged state, She managed a 39.8 which gave her 5th in the B competition. After that she had to withdraw due to illness.
Daniel Grieg had his best world cup performance, gaining some good experience for the world junior championships in Russia (12-14 March). Daniel posted a 36.4 in the 500 and a 1:12.69 in the 1000, his best sea level times so far.

Back in Holland on the same weekend Elma de Vries, Janneke Ensing and Manon Kamminga contested the Dutch national all round championships. In some great racing Elma proved that she was the best allrounder taking the gold ahead of Jorien Voorhuis and Marit Lenstra. After being sick for the week before Janneke Ensing did very well managing her highest placement in this event so far with 5th overall. Manon kamminga raced every distance in a personal best time and was also the youngest competitor.

Congradulations to all!

We will finish of this awesome season with the following events:

World championships junior Daniel Greig- 500 & 1000 SD and Brooke Lochland all-round and 3000 SD

World Championships all round
Elma de Vries

Go team!!



Sophie at the games in her first 500m against Jen Rodrigues the first girl to switch from inlines successfully.
(Picture from Getty images)





Elma and Sophie in their team gear in Vancouver.



Rogina, Sophie and Desly at the Aussie flag ceremony.

It did not take us long to realize why everyone says that being on Olympic team is very special!

In around 15 mins our after we landed our accrediation was validated, bags picked up and we were in our very own Aussie car with really cool driver named Derek, heading for the village.

Our team chiefs greeted us on arrival showed us around. It was not hard to find our apartment as it was decorated with a 2 storey high boxing kangaroo! The living arrangements are beautiful and we could really not want for anything from body wash to vegemite!! The view from our balcony is across the water to the city so we feel great! The food hall is open 24 hours a day and so far everyone we have seen (especially ex inliners) are just walking around with a big grin on their face.

Elma and Sophie both had a great trip and tomorrow will be about settling in and a recovery spin on the bike. Practice on the ice will begin Sunday.


Greets from Vancouver!

Today we got some heart breaking news from the Aussie Olympic committee that Daniel Greig and Josh Lose would not be able to compete at the Games even though they were 2nd and 1st reserve on a shrinking list of Olympic quota spots.

Its important we remember what a great season these guys have had and are having. When you try to make an Olympic team after only one year in a sport it was never going to be easy. Even Olympic champion Derek Para did not pull that off in his first season. March 2009 we celebrated as these two boys and their team mate Sophie Muir broke into the times needed just to compete at a world cup. It went on from there with constant improvement and even with this non- selection the improvement is not stopping, as we speak the everyone is getting faster and faster.

This season josh Lose raced every world cup faster than the last and rapidly moved up the ladder. It came down to the last world cup in Salt Lake City where he was under pressure to pull out a special time, he did that passing about 8 of his rivals and getting a personal best time 8 seconds faster than his previous one! That skate qualified him by time as 28th on the qualifying list which normally was enough to go to the games. Due to a rule that states that a person from a country that has no one in the event who places top 12 at a world championships in the previous season (2008-2009) can be bumped up the list and take the bottom skater out. This is in fact what happened, and Josh was beaten by a guy who actually got that worlds placement before Josh knew how to skate properly. With a first reserve place you still have a pretty good chance to go in, but it appears at this stage that will not happen.

Daniel Greig tried to achieve something no one has done successfully this year and that was go to a world inline championship and then follow up by going to the Olympic games. Things were looking good until a few days after arriving at the worlds for inline where he contracted bronchitis following that up with a fall that tore some tendons in his ankle! Even with bronchitis he placed 10th in his first senior championship. Because of the recovery needed from that championships the ice season took a little longer to get into, but that he did. Dan missed selection for the first 3 world cups then finally got to compete in the last 2. He had 2 x 500m and 2 x 1000m to try and get a spot for the games. The first 500m was a near crash and the first 1000m was about getting his confidence back at world cup level speed. So just like Josh Dan had Salt Lake City to decide his fate. The 500m he missed by .07 off the qualifying time and in the 1000m he got the qualifying time easily, but so did a bunch of other guys! so due to less that .1 he was on the reserve list for that event. That’s where he has stayed unfortunately.

Dan will go on to prepare for the world cup sprint and the Junior World championships (where he is currently ranked 3rd). Josh will hang out in Calgary and painfully wait it out just incase!

This is a good opportunity to again thank everyone who helped to make this attempt possible. We tried to and go to the games in one year, Sophie will be there fighting the good fight and Desly Hill and Rogina de Jong supporting her. GOOD LUCK Sophie!

Watch this space for the two Aussie men who came so, so close.... Its not over, its has only just begun.

A quick introduction to Joshua Alan Lose, of the Australian Speed Skating Team.

This season has been crazy for the Australian ice speed skating team. In less than 14 months we went from having a group of skaters that were just learning to actually skate transform into a team skating World cups, World championships and going to the Olympic games! To make this possible there was a lot of hard work done behind the scenes besides of course the great work our team does on their skates.
First of all a BIG thank you to our team manager Harry Oosterhuis who helped us with organizing all these different things to help us make it happen:

This season we moved into the finest town for ice skating in the world ‘Heerenveen’ we love it there and everyone makes us feel at home. We would like to thank:

• Willem Veldman and his helpful staff at Sportstad- for helping us get established and making the team feel at home,
• Henk Schra at Stoudam Sports and all his staff for the help with equipment,
• Bio racer- Bio racer is a Belgian company that makes cycling clothing and just recently they got into ice skating. They make an awesome suit that compares with the best speed suits in the world and uses all the latest technology in their materials. When the skaters put this on they can feel how it holds them in position and this has helped them go much faster!
• mk.basics.nl, Roadsign, and skatingonline.nl recently helped our sprinters get to Obihiro for world sprints in Japan, we hope they stick around and enjoy being part of our success.
• Daniel Yeow has been skating with us smashing his pb times all year but not only that he has taken some amazing pictures and great footage of our team, his pictures have gone on web sites and in newpapers all over the world so thank ‘Yeowie”
• Berry Hofsink and Leon Meijer and Hanneke Schuling helped our team on many occasions with their great treatments on sore muscles and the occasion injury, thanks guys we really appreciate that!
• The Dutch National inline skating team- a number of juniors and seniors from the national team regularly give the Aussies tips on the ice, and this is really appreciated. The Aussies have worked with the Dutch team on inlines in summer and returned the favor and its been a success. We have been lucky to have Dutch stars like Elma de Vries skate with them regularly to lift the level on ice. Elma started out with everyone in the beginning and tips from her, the Mulder brothers and ALL of the ‘Dutchies’ are appreciated.
• Bont- thanks to Alex and Inze at bont boots for making the kids some boots. Josh has some kick ass white bonts, inze bont took time out and actually made them himself and Josh flys in them.
• Groothuis- Dan chooses to skate on Groothuis shoes and Gee really went out of his way to make Dan a pair very fast and very custom, Dan has different feet and Equipment in this sport has been hard to settle on.

Aside from what happens in Holland we have had help from Australian people we have not even met yet, these people ended up getting a whole bunch of work they did not know was coming and as the team got faster rather quickly the work increased in the same way, Thanks to:

• Yvonne Hay- Australian ice racing (AIR) administrator
• Pam Cavanagh- Olympic flyers skating club
• Geoff Lipshut- CEO of Olympic Winter Institute of Australia
• Jim Hewish- President of AIR
• Marie Perkins- a talented physio provided by the AIS thanks for her great work treating the kids in salt lake city when we needed it the most.

So a BIG THANK YOU from us:

The biggest Australian Long track team for a long time...maybe ever
Sophie Muir- first female Olympian for Australia on long track and national record holder 500, 1000
Daniel Greig- World cup and world championship skater national record holder 500, 1000
Josh Lose- World cup skater and national record holder 5k & 10k
Brooke Lochland- upcoming junior worlds representative and national record holder 1500m and 3k
Desly Hill- Coach
Rogina de Jong- Coach

Yesterday it was official that Ronald Mulder will skate in Vancouver at the Olympic games! Ronald has had a fantastic season just last weekend placing 4th in the world sprint championships. Ronald we all love your work!

One of our friends Aussie ex-long track skater Colin Coats has been sick in hospital these past few weeks.

Colin was at all the world cups so far this season coaching our friend inline/ice skater Pascal Briand from France. Colin also manages to get a few positive worlds in now and then for the new young Aussies who are managing to let Australian long track live on.
For the European all round and the world sprints Pascal was alone without a coach, but not in spirit.

Check out the logo on his skating suit saying thanks to Colin for all his good work.
Success to Pascal for his Olympic selection and get well soon Colin Coats!