The past weekend saw WA short track history made with the first ever Western Australian short track team competing in the Duke Trophy National Teams event held at Canterbury Ice Arena in Sydney.

6 WA skaters competed in events ranging from 222m to 3000m across 4 divisions, with two of our skaters, Madison Poole (Midget Div.) and Mark Chong (Sub-junior Div.) going under the current national records in two distances.

Unfortunately for Mark, he was second in both of those races and won’t be credited with a national record, but it is amazing effort after transitioning to ice speed skating in February this year from inline speed skating.

All others skaters saw great improvements in their own personal racing skills, as well as establishing new personal best times, and I have no doubt that we will produce more record holders over the coming years.

All skaters should be proud of their efforts, and the way the WA skaters presented themselves both on and off the ice won the WA Team the ‘Spirit of the Dukes’ Cup. All skaters had been inspired by a private video message delivered from 3 time Winter Olympian and WA skater Richard Nizielski before they left to compete in the event.

Even though WA did not have any ambitions on winning the Duke Trophy competition this year, we were more than pleased with our results, coming fourth but with only a 1/4 of the size of the NSW and QLD teams and a reduced Victorian team, it was always a numbers game.

We look forward to sending a bigger team next year and pulling in the gap between WA and the other states in a few very short years.

If you would like to be a part of the growing sport here in WA, make contact with us today and enjoy the fun, fitness and excitement that is short track ice speed skating! All ages over 8 years are welcome, including Master/Veteran age (an assessment of younger skaters can be made on an individual basis).