Friday 6 February 2015 16:25, UK
It has been a busy few weeks for Stuart Horsepool. The Performance Director of GB Short-Track Speed Skating has had a Star Class event on home soil and the European Championships to think about. With two World Cups and the World Championships in the next six weeks, there is little respite in sight.
However, if the upcoming events go as well as the most recent two then Horsepool will be a happy man. The Star Class event gave a British audience a rare chance to see the GB skaters in action in the flesh and the success they achieved on their home rink was replicated at the European Championships.
Elise Christie was the star in Dordrecht as she was named the overall European champion having won gold in both the 500m and 1500m as well as silver in the 3000m super final. Just reward after the effort she has put in in the 12 months since her Winter Olympics disaster in Sochi, according to Horsepool.
One of the issues we have within the system in the UK is that we don’t have many skaters
“I think there were a combination of factors that built into the performance. Naturally there are going to be demons from the Olympic Games that are going to be hanging around but the interesting point about the Europeans was that it was the same referee as at the Olympic Games, her biggest competitor was the same skater – Arianna Fontana from Italy - and there were two instances within the competition where the two skaters crashed,” he told Sky Sports.
“One happened behind Elise when Arianna caught the back of Elise’s skate and fell over in the 1500m, that had nothing to do with Elise, and then Elise went on and skated superbly to win the 500m as well so she was in a very strong position after day one.
“Going into day two we had the 1000m which is Elise’s strongest event and in the semi-final Elise was going past Arianna, the two skaters collided and the referee made a call against Elise again. This brought all the Olympic Games back into the forefront and Elise and the team around her did a fantastic job to rationalise all of that.”
The matter was complicated further by the fact that Christie’s GB team-mate, Charlotte Gilmartin, had made the final and with only a short window of time between the semi-final and the final, the GB staff were in overdrive as they attended to both skaters.
“Elise, to her credit, managed to park all of those feelings and come out and skate a fantastic race in the 3000m and come second and therefore take the overall title,” added Horsepool. “There were a lot of emotions put to rest, it was an amazing achievement by her to come through it all because there were such a lot of connections and similarities to what happened at the Games.”
Christie, along with Gilmartin, who Horsepool described as being “right on the cusp of breaking through into the medal zone,” next compete in the penultimate World Cup of the season, in Dresden, this weekend.
That there are now two British female skaters capable of competing in world finals with the prospect of winning medals is an incredible achievement given the obstacles GB Short-Track must overcome to even stay in touch with some of the sport’s leading nations.
Key among them is the ability to put race tactics into practice in a competitive environment before going up against the world’s elite.
“One of the issues we have within the system in the UK is that we don’t have many skaters,” Horsepool explained. “So if for instance Elise had made this level of performance and she was Canadian or Russian or Korean or Chinese - any of the other top six or seven nations - then she would have been racing competitively and making tactical race decisions all the way through her racing career, as would Charlotte and as would all of the boys.
“The problem we have in this country is they very rarely get that experience before they get to international level. Therefore we are at a disadvantage because our skaters don’t practice that in a competition environment.”
The ultimate ambition for Christie and Horsepool is glory at the 2018 Winter Olympics but this season the target is to achieve success as the World Championships in Moscow next month. That means the upcoming World Cups being used as little more than a testing ground.
“That is what we’d call our milestone target, the World Championships,” he said. “It is a learning process and whereas other countries have spent years and years developing their skills we have to go to these events and use them as learning.
“We don’t have the facility of numbers to practice those key racing skills until we get to that level because we haven’t got the volume of people. We have to look at it a bit differently and be a bit smarter than our fellow competitors because they already hone their skills just to qualify within their national system.
“We are at a disadvantage but by being smart about it and doing the analysis that we are doing, we are hopefully bridging the gap and making sure it won’t be an issue come 2018.”
