- The speed skating venue for the Milano Cortina Winter Games is a temporary arena, a first for the Olympics.
- Despite concerns that a temporary venue would create slow ice, multiple Olympic records have been broken.
- Ice-maker Mark Messer and his crew face challenges managing the ice thickness to support the Zambonis.
MILAN — United States speed skater Jordan Stoltz will have a chance to set a third Olympic record in three races when he competes in the 1,500 meters at the Winter Olympics on Thursday, Feb. 19.
It wouldn’t be possible without unsung heroes.
That would be Mark Messer and his small crew managing the ice that created concerns before the Milano Cortina Winter Games began.
The ice resides in a temporary arena, the first to be used during a Winter Olympics. One worry was that the presence of spectators would heat up the building, soften the ice and slow the likes of Stolz.
‘I knew it was a challenge,’ Messer, working in his seventh Winter Olympics, told USA TODAY Sports. ‘They threw around a couple different options when they finally decided on doing it in this building as a temporary track. It was just, OK, you’ve decided, so let’s go to work.’
The use of preexisting and temporary facilities are being used to reduce costs of hosting the games. The plan appears to be working at the speed skating venue.
Olympic records were set in six of the first eight races.
Stolz has set Olympic records in the men’s 500 and 1,000 – two of the four races he will compete in here – and said of the ice, ‘The condition is actually really good. I’m not sure how they did it.’
Paul Golomski, a member of Messer’s crew, said, ‘It’s a miracle.’
Zamboni poses some risk
Messer said the ice is ‘a little bit noisier underneath’ than in permanent rinks.
‘There’s some hallways underneath, there’s insulation on the bottom,’ said Messer, whose full-time job is Director of the Olympic Oval, a covered speed skating oval built for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. ‘And that gives us some challenges because we’re taking a six-ton Zamboni onto the ice.’
In fact, two Zambonis roll onto the ice at once.
‘We need to have a thick ice to be able to keep the weight of that machine,’ Messer said. ‘So we are having some challenges with the weight of the machines, and we don’t want to make the ice any thicker because then we lose control of the temperatures a little bit. So we’re trying to run as thin as we can so that we can get the refrigeration from the bottom to the top where the skaters are and thick enough that we’re not having blowouts from the (Zamboni) tires.’
When Messer and his crew track these issues, monitoring temperature of the ice is key.
‘We’re running around minus-9 degrees in the middle of the ice,’ he said.
Ice is on the move
This is not to suggest everything has gone perfectly.
‘Oh, no,’ Messer said. ‘Things change daily. The ice is moving all the time. We’ve had the ice move and crack where it’s pulled apart. One of the antennas in the ice pulled the wire apart. So everything’s in constant flux.
‘There’s a hollow spot today, it sounds solid tomorrow, but the next day it’s somewhere else. It’s a constant shifting and (we keep a) really vigilant eye on the conditions out there.’
Messer is not working alone.
He said he’s got got three Zamboni operators from North America and a crew of the contractor that installed the refrigeration.
‘We have somebody that’s working on just keeping the refrigeration going into the rink, and then there’s somebody outside that’s supplying the coolant that we bring into the rink,’ he said, adding three companies are involved in the operation. ‘And I think that’s one of the challenges, too, is kind of getting everybody on the same page and seeing who does what and being able to coordinate the three or four different groups.’
‘Nice to hear’
In the second speed skating race at the Milan Cortina Winter Games, American Casey Dawson finished eighth in the men’s 5,000.
‘I think the ice conditions can be variable here compared to other tracks because all the other tracks are permanent and they can control conditions a lot easier,’ Dawson said afterward. ‘So from day-to-day here, it’s been a little different, and on race day it’s going to be a little bit harder to control the temperature and everything because having everyone in the stands is going to warm up the building.’
Others voiced similar concerns.
But two days later, Stolz set an Olympic record in the men’s 1,000 meters and offered his stamp of approval for the ice.
‘Well, it’s nice to hear that Jordan thought it was good,’ Messer said. ‘We’re getting some pretty positive feedback.’
Heading into the Winter Olympics, Messer said, his hope was the speed skaters would be able to challenge a few of the Olympic records.
‘I thought in Beijing (at the 2022 Winter Olympics) we had some really fast times,’ he said. ‘But seeing some of the spaces there between the Olympic record and the world records, I thought that we could maybe challenge some of the Olympic records.
‘But this is exceeding our expectations for sure.’