My Life as an Olympic Intern: World Cup

I am ashamed to admit this but in all the years that I have worked at the Oval {~5 years} I never made it to a World Cup competition. Now that I work for US Speedskating I spent all weekend at the Oval working with sponsors, media, and athletes. It was really cool to see the sport in a competition setting. Long Track is such a graceful and elegant sport however it is not the fast paced action of Short Track so it hasn't gained the traction in the United States that short track has enjoyed.

We got to see a new World Record set in the 5000m. Martina Sablikova broke her own record by a little less than three seconds! It literally gave me goosebumps {I know that's dorky} this is one of my favorite things about working within the Olympic Movement, you get to see people achieve goals that some have been working their entire lives to get to. It is such an amazing thing to experience!

The competition ran from Friday-Saturday pretty much all day. They only competed the longer distances here in Salt Lake 1500m, 3000m, 5000m {ladies} and 10000m {men}. There was also a cool demonstration event, the mass start race. Normally in long track the athletes race in pairs and against the clock so there usually no more than two people racing at the same time. The mass start has many skaters all going at the same time, it was really cool to watch.

Here are some of the pictures I took this weekend...