Short Track Speed Skating World Championships – Montreal, Canada

Action at the Short Track Speed Skating World Championships moved to the shortest distance, 500m, on Saturday. The event didn’t last long for Emily Scott who was knocked out in the preliminary round after finishing third in her heat. Jessica Smith was able to advance through the preliminaries and then survived the heats by being one of the four fastest third place finishers. Her run ended in the quarterfinals however after a third place finish.

In the men’s 500m J.R. Celski and Chris Creveling survived the preliminaries and heats just fine, though Creveling needed to be advanced in the heats after being obstructed and finishing fourth. Creveling would advance no further than the quarterfinals while Celski made it all the way to the final. In the final Celski wound up second to grab silver. It’s no Olympic medal, but a silver at the World Championships is still a big deal and a great result for Celski.

Celski and Creveling teamed up with Eduardo Alvarez and Kyle Carr in the men’s 5000m relay. The US got eliminated in the semifinals after finishing third in a tight race behind the Koreans and Dutch.

Things wrap up on Sunday with the 1000m races. Once again Emily Scott and Jessica Smith are the US women and Chris Creveling and J.R. Celski the US men. There is also a 3000m race, but it’s just a superfinal with no heats. With the small field size for that event I’m not sure anyone will be competing for the US, but if anyone is my gut tells me Celski.

Schedule:

• March 16th
  • Women’s 1000m
    • 11:52 AM ET – Heats
      • Jessica Smith
      • Emily Scott
    • 1:19 PM ET – Quarterfinals
    • 2:03 PM ET – Semifinals
    • 2:34 PM ET – Final
  • Men’s 1000m
    • 12:21 PM ET – Heats
      • J.R. Celski
      • Chris Creveling
    • 1:33 PM ET – Quarterfinals
    • 2:11 PM ET – Semifinals
    • 2:41 PM ET – Final
  • Women’s 3000m
    • 3:03 PM ET – Superfinal
  • Men’s 3000m
    • 3:13 PM ET – Superfinal

World Women’s Curling Championships – St. John’s, Canada

The US Opened the World Women’s Curling Championship with a big 12-5 win over China on Saturday. The US struck for two in both the first and third ends with the hammer to open up a 4-2 lead early. The big moment came though in the sixth end when the US stole three to go up 8-3. The US scored another three with the hammer in the ninth end to give us the final margin of 12-5 as the tenth end wasn’t necessary.

The win makes the US one of four teams still undefeated after day one (though three other teams played twice and went 1-1). On Sunday the US faces Germany and Denmark. Both of those teams went 0-1 on the first year so the US should definitely be confident they can get off to a good start which is probably also necessary if they want to think about advancing from the round robin.

Schedule:

• March 16th
  • 1:30 PM ET – USA vs. Germany
  • 6:30 PM ET – USA vs. Denmark