2008 Australian and New South Wales Championships Dates

The dates and venue for the 2008 Australian Short Track Championships were decided on Monday the 12^th of May at a meeting held at Canterbury Ice Rink.

The competition will be held Friday and Saturday the 3^rd and 4^th of October 2008 at the Sydney Ice Arena in Baulkham Hills, New South Wales.

I believe that it was also decided that the New South Wales Open Championships will be held on the preceding Sat and Sun the 27th and 28th of September at Canterbury Ice Rink (Sydney).

Discussions between Ellis Southee of the Sydney Ice Arena and myself lead to the idea (if international numbers made it viable) to hold a Masters International Sprint event between the two competitions, likely to be hosted by the Sydney Vikings Club and to be held at the Sydney Ice Arena. Ellis has given me an undertaking that ice time would gladly be supplied to support such an event.

Sydney is the 2000 Summer Olympic city and host to the Australian Youth Olympic Festival and is a very tourist friendly destination, with a very good public transport system and a great variety of world class tourist attractions.

There is a good amount of reasonably cheap accommodation in the Baulkham Hills/Castle Hill area, which is close to the Sydney Ice Arena or alternatively there is a great range of facilities in Sydney City, which is approximately 40km from the Sydney Ice Arena.

For those masters looking for a good amount of racing, this ‘carnival’ could be a good trip with the possibility of three events in 8 days, with rest/tourist days dotted in between. The Masters event would not be held or planned unless enough interest was shown well in advance to the proposed event

If you would consider coming to Australia to compete in this carnival, please register your interest by emailing me by the 15^th of June 2008. Registering your interest in no way binds you to attending or paying any fee.

Both of the NSW and Australian Championships will be open to skaters from midgets to masters age divisions.

As I indicated earlier, regardless of any specific masters event, the other two events will go ahead. I hope to see some 'international' flavour added to our Australian Championships.

Frank