Short Track Report From the Canada Games:
PEI Speed Skaters show their best performances of the season at the Canada Games in Whitehorse 

Nine short track and 4 long track skaters competed during the first week of competition at the Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse, Yukon.  They returned home recently after being away for 10 days. 

Short track skaters competed in 4 distances (500, 100, 1500 & 3000m) as well as a 3000m relay.  The women’s (Ellen Christie, Kathleen Cullen, Keisha Rose & Allie Byrne) and men’s (Jake Byrne, Tyler Coyle and Scott Murray) relay teams both broke PEI provincial records as they finished 5th and 6th respectively.  Amazingly, the men’s relay provincial record was made with just three skaters (an injury prevented a full complement of 4 skaters from participating) and with one skater falling during the race. 

In the individual distances all skaters achieved personal best times in at least 2 of the 4 distances competed in and most skaters had seasonal best times in the remaining distances.  Notable performances included Ellen Christie with 3 personal best times that were also PEI provincial records, Kathleen Cullen with 3 PB’s including 1 provincial record (later broken again by Ellen Christie!), Jake Byrne with 2 PB’s including 1 provincial record and Constance Holman with 4 PB’s.  Although injured after a fall and forced to miss several races Simon Watts returned to make his 3rd PB of the competition in the grueling 3000m distance.  With the relay provincial record Ellen Christie finished with 4 provincial records; she was also the first women trained on PEI to skate faster than 50 seconds in the 500m distance! 

Final standings after combining results from all distances had Ellen Christie finishing as the top PEI female skater (23rd) and Jake Byrne as the top PEI male skater (25th); this was an improvement for both of them from their original seeding placement prior to the competition.  Results for the remaining short track skaters are as follows: Kathleen Cullen (31), Keisha Rose (41), Constance Holman (43) and Allie Byrne (44) in the female division (55 total skaters) and Tyler Coyle (34), Scott Murray (37) and Simon Watts (50) in the male division (56 total skaters). 

Men's Short Track Team: Scott Murray, Jake Byrne, Simon Watts, Tyler Coyle Women's Short Track Team: Ellen Christie, Constance Holman, Keisha Rose, Kathleen Cullen, Allie Byrne Men's Long Track Team: Charles Waddell, Ben Holmes, Evan Cribb, Mitchell Jay Coaches: Alastair Cribb (Short Track and official CG Coach), Rebecca Doiron (Long Track,) Phil Byrne (Head Coach in Charlottetown) Managers: Sheila Christie (Short Track), Glenn Holmes (Long Track)

Our Canada Games athletes departed on February 21st for a full ten days in Whitehorse, Yukon, the venue for the 2007 Canada Winter Games.  They've been training for this for almost three years, and they were ready to take on the country's best.  Temperatures were frigid in Whitehorse, but they still managed to bring home a bucketload of personal best times and some provincial records.  Way to go, team!!

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