 Thursday, November 25, 2004 0:03:10 CST
Hi everyone,
It's been a long time since I gave some news here.
The season is really underway, the first two World Cups
are done and our Canadian trials for the next two upcoming Americans WC. This summer I was not sure if I was going to
be able to skate at those Asian World Cups. I was not expecting good results anyway in China. It went pretty well
as you probably saw the results. I did not make any final but I was close. Even though I was the best Canadian
at this first World Cup, I decided not to skate all the distances in Beijing, because I thought I was not skating that well.
So I split the distances with Steve Robillard and J-F Monette. They were pretty happy about that. ;-)
I was surprised with my coach's decision to make me anchor the 2 relays in China: surprised, because my confidence
was so low at that point. But after that it gave me a big boost of confidence. I was able to pass Li Jiajun in
the last 2 laps of the Beijing relay (even if Apolo passed us both inside at the same time).
I came back to Montreal and training was going better and
better each day for two weeks. Then we had our national trials in Calgary. Like usual the ice was perfect there.
I don't like to skate some competitions there because of that. Everybody is able to skate a tight track and never
slips in the corner so it makes some very tight races. So many skaters were able to skate under 42 seconds in the 500m.
(I think about 10). Charles Hamelin even did a 41.03 (very close to going under 41) ;-)
I was DQ'd in the 1500m final and I finished 13th in the
500m. Before the last day I was ranked 10th overall. With only 1 more distance to qualify for the World Cups,
I was a little nervous. I was able to finish 2nd in the 1000m. That put me in 5th place (ranking for the North
American World Cups). And finally, I won the 3000m, that put me in 3rd place (ranking for the World Championships),
with one more trails to do in Janurary. I was very satisfied with the way I was skating last weekend.
Let's hope I can do the same here in Madison. I will
only skate the 1000m and the relay here. The rink is very nice, it's very big too. I hope there are going
to be lots of people in the stands like last year in Marquette. Bye for now. I'll give some news this weekend.
Hope to see some of you here this weekend,
Jonathan
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