Short Track Speed Skating ISU Four Continents Championships 2023

[Totallympics 78]

Short Track Speed Skating ISU Four Continents Championships 2023

 

Salt Lake City (USA) - 10 November 2022 - 12 November 2022

 

 

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Edited October 28, 2022 by Sindo

[Grassmarket 4,063]

Pedants will object that North & South America are two continents, that Oceania is at best only half a continent & that Antarctica is not represented at all.  It’s like the Paris Dakar rally, which neither starts in Paris nor ends in Dakar.

[Monzanator 4,783]

Is Europe really that dominant in short track they need a Four Continents event? I could understand Four Continents in handball but this?   Or is this just a B-team event to begin with?

[Topicmaster1010 5,423]

5 hours ago, Monzanator said:

Is Europe really that dominant in short track they need a Four Continents event? I could understand Four Continents in handball but this?   Or is this just a B-team event to begin with?

Europe is definitely not dominant in short track. Traditionally, Korea, China and Canada have been the most successful countries. Only in the last decade have European countries like the Netherlands and Italy been on the rise.

 

For this event, looks like Canada, Korea and the US have most of their A team here minus one or two skaters. China and Kazakhstan looks like they don't.

[phelps 8,302]

29 minutes ago, Topicmaster1010 said:

Europe is definitely not dominant in short track. Traditionally, Korea, China and Canada have been the most successful countries. Only in the last decade have European countries like the Netherlands and Italy been on the rise.

 

For this event, looks like Canada, Korea and the US have most of their A team here minus one or two skaters. China and Kazakhstan looks like they don't.

actually Italy was already among the powerhouses when Short Track wasn't even an Olympic sport (and in the mid Nineties in the men's division we were even better than the Koreans).

 

then we lost that amazing generation through horrible injuries (outside the rink) and we started to decline a bit, even if in the last few years we regained some dignity in the global scene (mainly thanks to Arianna Fontana).

[Olympian1010 8,235]

6 hours ago, Monzanator said:

Is Europe really that dominant in short track they need a Four Continents event? I could understand Four Continents in handball but this?   Or is this just a B-team event to begin with?

I think it has more to do with how many competitive nations their are outside of Asia. Asia has enough interest to have their own championships (check the number of entries at the last Asian Winter Games for instance), but there’s really no point in a Pan American Championship as it would just be USA, Canada, and another odd skater here or there. It’s better to think of this as an expanded Asia-Pacific Championships.

[NearPup 3,506]

12 hours ago, Monzanator said:

Is Europe really that dominant in short track they need a Four Continents event? I could understand Four Continents in handball but this?   Or is this just a B-team event to begin with?

It’s because Europe already had a continental championship and there isn’t enough depth to justify a standalone North American or Asian championship. The Four Continents is basically the continental championship for everybody else.

 

Curling and all skating sports have two “continental” championships like this, one for Europe and the other for the rest of the world.

[Monzanator 4,783]

3 hours ago, NearPup said:

It’s because Europe already had a continental championship and there isn’t enough depth to justify a standalone North American or Asian championship. The Four Continents is basically the continental championship for everybody else.

 

Curling and all skating sports have two “continental” championships like this, one for Europe and the other for the rest of the world.

Yet Africa is obviously nowhere to be found and likewise Australia (and we pretend South America belong to Americas as a whole). What is the value of winning a Four Continents championship if you know it's basically five nations competing - Canada, USA, Korea, China & Japan? Will any other country even have a shot at medals? I mean Japan isn't really that good in short track either. Unless some nations start fielding naturalized Koreans

[NearPup 3,506]

4 minutes ago, Monzanator said:

Yet Africa is obviously nowhere to be found and likewise Australia (and we pretend South America belong to Americas as a whole). What is the value of winning a Four Continents championship if you know it's basically five nations competing - Canada, USA, Korea, China & Japan? Will any other country even have a shot at medals? I mean Japan isn't really that good in short track either. Unless some nations start fielding naturalized Koreans

TBH I’d argue that in short track winning the 4Cs is more impressive than winning the Europeans.

 

Like sure it‘s just  but that’s, what, two of the three best countries on both the men’s and women’s side and consistently four of the eight best countries in both genders?

Edited November 11, 2022 by NearPup

[Monzanator 4,783]

But why call it Four Continents when you can call it Four Nations championships? Why even bother with the minnows?