RICHMOND, B.C. — It was 90 minutes before the men’s 500-meter speedskating event — a scheduled 20 consecutive races, enough activity to turn a two-lane oval into a cauldron — and Mark Messer was as fidgety as an expectant father.
You think the Olympic skaters are under pressure? Perhaps they are. But that kind of pressure lasts about 35 seconds.
You think the Olympic skaters are under pressure? Perhaps they are. But that kind of pressure lasts about 35 seconds.
Messer’s pressure comes down to this: If the delicate, 1-inch-thick surface inside the magnificent Richmond Oval isn’t anything less than pristine for skating purposes, he’s going to hear about it.
“I get as many complaints as I get compliments,” said the ice-resurfacing specialist, a Calgary native. “But that’s the weird thing: In one session, you can have 10 guys who say it’s the greatest ice they ever had, and 10 other guys who call it terrible and say they can’t skate on it.”
Just the same, the Icemeister’s first order of business was making the surface feel exactly the same from the start of Monday’s 500-meters (about 3:30 p.m.) to the end (about 6:45 p.m.).
And don’t think the participants in the world’s fastest human-powered sport don’t know the difference.
Standing in a two-bay garage off one end of the oval, with a modest “ice resurfacing” sign on the wall, Messer’s attention shifts every minute, as if redirected by the wind.
“There are about 200 things that have to be right right now, but at the top of the list is controlling the air temperature and humidity, monitoring the number of people coming in, and the lights,” he said.
“And then there’s the ice — the thickness, the amount of ice we’re going to cut, the amount of water we’re going to put down.”
So he even monitors the body heat generated by 8,000 rabid spectators? (Yes, the Dutch were out in full force.).
“We try to control everything,” Messer said. “We monitor the temperature and humidity from six different areas. You have to compensate for changes before the people even come in. By the time the heat hits, it’s already too late if you’re not ready for it. You never get it back. So it’s a juggling act.”
Messer works with 10 others — six who work on the ice exclusively (including the drivers who run the ice resurfacers), and four who monitor changes in the building. Their work is extremely tricky, because Richmond is basically a city at sea level, surrounded by moist air, so no world records are likely to be established here.
Compare that with Salt Lake City, which is 4,225 feet above sea level. Shani Davis has set world records in SLC, and when he first tried Messer’s surface last year, he gave it a thumbs-down:
“Worker’s ice,” the skating superstar called it. “It keeps you in your place.”
That’s not something Messer wants to hear again.
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