| NY State Championships, Newburgh, NY March 12, 2005 The morning started early, and with a great deal of snow. The start of the meet had to be delayed by 30 minutes to accomodate the people who were coming in from places that were East and South, as that was where the bulk of the weather was. After surviving witnessing mutiple spinouts as well, I finally arrived at check in later that I had planned but found the fort to be nailed down. Bill had the whole situation under control, as we all knew he would. There were a few disgruntled skaters starting to believe we were "repeating" last year because of the delay, but when the meet finally got underway, we quickly proved to them that this year was different. I spent my day chasing blocks (all 7 hours on the ice). Let me tell you, I have a new appreciation for the way a track is maintained. That job was so tiring, and even though you are up close to the action, you are not really sure about what is going on because you are too busy watching the track, not the race. I do know that there were some exciting battles in this meet, as there are in every meet. Ganghyun was putting the pressure on Trevor all day in the senior division. Patrick Choi also put the screws to his group as well. Chris Hawkins battled Vinnie Gagliano and Al Harding, claiming at one point that he hated the 500, the race that seemed to be his easiest victory. I felt sorry for these grand masters, as they had to skate a final and then three events later another set of heats. I think if anything they were beat up by the schedule. This seemed to happen to the seniors as well. Claude Gilbert had a bit of competition as well, though he easily skated to victory. Chris Windman and Matt Abt also skated into victory. Justin WIndman had a battle with Nick Pasternack, though the battle was clearly only a matter of crashing. Justin was a much faster and accomplished skater, he just lost it on the turn in the first race (too much speed for him to control) and Nick looked back and fell, blaming his own crash on Justin. The next race, Nick fell in front of Justin and took him out on the way down. Justin skated cleanly the third race, first to the block, first to cross (a full 3/4 of a lap ahead of the rest of the field). Speaking of crashes, Fred Gilbert had a few of his own. Kenny Windman (announcing) even asked him if he would rather use a mop than his shirt at one point. A comment that had my end of the ice in stitches. Fred, you can really push the custom skates, they really are capable of taking the beating needed to start. All in all Taconic had a great day, at a meet that went over really well. Matt Abt- 1st Chris Windman - 1st Olivia Abt - 2nd Claude Gilbert - 1st Justin Windman - 2nd A great big thank you has to go to Bill Soukup and his crew for a fantastic, well run meet! |
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