Salt Lake City / United States

The Short Track season starts tomorrow with the ISU World Cup Short Track series. The circuit consists of six events across North America, Asia and Europe. The Series goes back to its original format with one day of qualification instead of two. At each competition the Men and Ladies Relay races will take place along with Men and Ladies individual races which will be held over 500m, 1000m and 1500m and single distances determine the winners with the exception of the fourth World Cup in Seoul where the second 1500 m race will be replaced with a 3000 m race. The series will kick off in Salt Lake City (USA) on November 7-9 and moves to Montreal (CAN) on November 14-16. Almost a month later the Series will continue in Asia with Shanghai (CHN) on December 12-14 and then Seoul (KOR) on December 19-21. Short Trackers will compete in Europe in the New Year with the fifth leg in Dresden (GER) on February 6-8 and finally in Izmir (TUR) on February 13-15.

The first ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating starts in Salt Lake City (USA) where the world’s top skaters including reigning Olympic Champions, World and European Champions and medalists will compete in the Series. In total 160 skaters from 23 ISU Members have entered in this first leg of the Series. The competition starts with the qualification Heats on Friday. On Saturday Qualifying sessions and repechage continues followed by the Ladies and Men 1000m & 1500m Finals and the 3000m Relay Ladies & 5000m Relay Men Semi-Finals. Finally on Sunday Ladies and Men 500m & 1000m Finals, 3000m Relay Ladies and 5000m Relay Men Finals will take place.

Strong contenders in the Ladies include Olympic 1000m bronze and 1500m silver medalist and reigning World Allround Champion and World 1000m and 1500m Champion Suk Hee Shim  and teammate Alang Kim who holds the World 1500m silver medal. Five time European Champion and Olympic 500m silver and 1500m bronze medalist Arianna Fontana (ITA) will also take to the starting line. Other skaters to look out for are Olympic 1000m silver medalist Fan Kexin (CHN), 2014 and 2013 European silver medalist Elise Christie (GBR) and World Allround and World 1000m bronze medalist Valerie Maltais (CAN).

The reigning World overall Champion and most medaled Short Track athlete from the 2014 Olympics (500m, 1000m and Relay race gold and bronze in the 1500m) Victor An (RUS) headlines the Men’s line up with Olympic 1500m and World Champion and 2013 World overall bronze medalist Charles Hamelin (CAN). Dajing Wu (CHN) 500m Olympic silver medalist and reigning World 500m Champion, Vladimir Grigorev (RUS) Olympic 1000m silver medalist, Sjinkie Knegt (NED) Olympic 1000m bronze medalist and 2012 European Champion, Tianyu Han (CHN) Olmypic1500m silver medalist and 2013 World Allround Champions Da Woon Sin (KOR) are strong contenders on the World Cup circuit.

The ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating Series is available as a live stream on the ISU Skating Channel.  Please note that geoblocking may be required in certain territories