Canada West Short Track Championships

March 27, 2011

Eric Spence of the Kamloops River City Racers Speed Skating Club came home with two gold medals, two new personal best times and a second place overall finish in the 12 year old male division at the Canada West Short Track Championships this weekend in Kelowna. His gold medals came in the 10 minute event and the 3000m points race. He raced to personal best times in the 400m with a new time of 41.55 and a 4th place finish, and in the 100m he placed 5th with a time of 12.08 sec.

Team mates that also qualified for this event were sister Sara who finished 3rd overall in the 14 year old female category with two bronze medals, one silver medal and two personal best times and Anneke Pederson who finished 4th overall in the same age category with one silver and one bronze medal finish and two personal best times. Sara’s silver medal came in the 500m event with a new personal best time of 51.94. Bronze medal finishes came in the 3000m points race and the 100m distance where she set a personal best time of 12.14 sec. Anneke’s silver medal came in the 100m with a new personal best of 11.98 sec and her bronze medal was in the 500m event with a personal best time of 52.42. Anneke placed 6th in the 3000m points race and 4th in the 1500m event.

In the interprovincial team relay event Sara and Anneke combined with Emile Medland of Kelowna and Kaitlin Holtby of Port Coquitlam to finish second to the Alberta girls team. Eric’s relay team also won the silver medal in their category. Team members on this relay, in addition to Eric, were Alexander Chizawsky of Abbotsford, Cormac Chui of Burnaby and Ben Maxfield of Fort St. John. They came second to the 13 year old BC provincial team.

The Canada West Short Track Championships drew the fastest skaters aged 11 to 15yrs from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, BC and NWT. This is the highest level of short track competition for this age group and the last competition for the Racers for the 2010-2011 season.