Media Releases >  Media Releases Archive  > Staff at SFU help bring speed skating championships to B.C.

Document Tools

Contact:
Nancy McNeil, 604-291-4120, 604-941-2260, mcneil@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, media/pr, 604-291-3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca

As Nancy McNeil rounds the corner on her way to her office at Simon Fraser University's Strand Hall, she smiles quickly at passersby, and resumes strategizing her day. It is a day filled with the kind of project balancing and head spinning travel that requires the quick recovery and step of an expert speed skater.

McNeil, a research grants officer by day who makes sure the “T”s are crossed and the “I”s are dotted on SFU faculty members' research grant applications, recently donned an additional hat. As the media and promotions coordinator of the 2005 Canada Post Canadian Age Class Short Track Championships, McNeil hopes to secure media coverage for this national speed skating competition. The Coquitlam resident's 17-year old daughter Shaelagh was spotlighted as a short track speed skater of note in a recent review of B.C. hopefuls for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Shaelagh was the 2003-2004 B.C. Short Track Intermediate Women's champion. Graduating from Terry Fox Secondary School this spring, Shaelagh has her sights set on studying psychology at SFU and competing in the long track speed skating category at the 2010 Olympics. “As much as Shaelagh loves short track, serious injuries have motivated her to switch to long track. It has fewer competitors skating shoulder to shoulder than short track,” says McNeil, a former master's long track gold medalist.

Despite formidable odds, McNeil helped secure the bid for B.C. to host the upcoming April 1 to 3 national short track championships for the first time in years. The event, 7:45 a.m. to 6 p.m., held at the South Surrey Arena, is attracting 186 short track speed skaters in the midgets (ages 10 to 11) to seniors (18 years plus) age classes.

“The short track national championships are usually held in the Prairies or back east,” says McNeil, a former executive member of the Ridge Meadow Racers Speed Skating Club. “There is a much larger skating base and more potential for parental involvement in central and eastern Canada than here.”

-30-(electronic photo file available)
Websites:
www.speed-skating.bc.ca/
www.speedskating.ca/eng/