A who’s who of the speed skating world will battle it out this weekend at the Olympic Oval in Calgary in search of gold—and of furthering their chances of securing a spot in the Winter Games in Italy. This will likely be Canadian star Ivanie Blondin’s last season, and she says she wants to cherish things like skating in her home country. “It’s great. The past two years, we’ve had events here,” said Blondin. “We had World Championships and a World Cup here last year and the crowd was incredible. “I don’t think we’ve seen a crowd like that since the Olympics, so it’s really exciting for us to finally get a home crowd and skate at home.” Siblings share Olympic dream Twenty-two-year-old Laura Hall and her 20-year-old brother, Daniel Hall, are trying to make it to the Olympics for the first time. They say they’d love to get there together. “It would be really cool,” said Laura Hall. “Both of us have wanted to do it since we were really little. We’ve kind of grown up skating together.” “That would be special,” said Daniel Hall. “It would be nice to know that someone is in your corner the whole time. It would be special to be there with my sister and my family.” Father is an Olympian Speed skating runs in the Hall family. Their father, Michael Hall, competed in the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway. Daniel Hall says he and his sister learned a lot from him. “I think it was really important to have a good role model in my dad,” he said. “That was probably the biggest difference that it made.” The Halls started speed skating on an outdoor rink their dad built in Salmon Arm, B.C. Laura remembers skating together when she was four and her brother was two. “It has definitely brought us closer together,” she said. The ISU World Cup will take place at the Olympic Oval, Nov. 21-23.
