Work Meeting with Technical Chair Long Track Speed Skating

BRUSSELS – On request of FISU Secretary-General/CEO Eric SAINTROND and due to the finalization of a new project to start with the 1st Winter World University Championship in Speed Skating Long Track already in 2012, FISU Technical Chair for Long Track Speed Skating Louw Hekkema met with FISU Staff members Milan Augustin, Director Winter Universiade, and Laurent Briel, Director WUC on May 27th, to discuss the further development of Long Track Speed Skating within FISU.

As Long Track is an optional sport on the Winter Universiade program, it has been quite successful the last couple of events as it was on the program of the Winter Universiades of Innsbruck (2005), Torino (2007) and Harbin (2009). As the sport will not be on the program of the next WU until at least 2017, the Executive Committee decided to attribute Speed Skating as a World University Championship in order to avoid a draught in the sport for a couple of years.

The 1st Edition of Winter WUC in Speed Skating Long Track will be organized as soon as 2012,as a candidate already came forward. As this discipline can be organized outdoor or indoor, it was decided that the outdoor event will last 5 days (including 1 reserve day) while the indoor event will be 4 days. The official program of the event will be the same as during the WU in Harbin without the 100 m sprint competition Men and Women. Recall and Bidding dossier will be sent out to all NUSF in July 2010 with an application deadline set at October 30th, 2010. The atribution of the 2012 WUC LT Speed Skating will be done during the Executive Committee in November 2010 in Brussels. Further details will be discussed with the ISU.

Last but not least, if a Winter Universiade offical program includes Long Track Speed Skating, the year following the Winter Universiade the WUC LT Speed Skating will not be organized.

Christian Pierre, Press Officer

 Louw Hekkema, Technical Chair Long Track Speed Skating