NAGANO, Japan – After his latest races in Japan, speed skater Connor Howe wasn’t quite a Godzilla-esque monster, crushing competition and standing supreme.
But as long as the beast comes out of him later in the season, when he needs it to, the national champion from Canmore is OK with figuring things out until then.
The new ISU World Cup Speed Skating season got underway in Nagano, Japan, last week (Nov. 22-24), with the Canadian Olympian finishing eighth in the 1,500-metre long track, Howe's specialty race.
“My first 700 metres felt quite strong and smooth and my start has come along better than last year I think, but I just missed a bit of the efficiency,” said Howe, 24. “That could maybe be [because it’s] early in the season and not quite having it figured out.”
The multi-time World Cup medallist finished at a time of 1:45.93 – more than one second away from a podium spot.
USA’s Jordan Stolz won gold at 1:43.65.
Howe said he couldn’t quite maintain speed during his final two laps at the M-Wave, the arena used at the 1998 Winter Olympics, and he wasn’t quite able to get a feel for the oval’s ice at sea level.
“Hopefully over the World Cups I can build that up,” he said, “It would be ideal to hit the peak at the end of the season around the World Championships. That’s obviously the ultimate goal of the season.”
In Nagano, Howe also finished 18th in the 1,000m and in fourth place with Canada’s men’s Team Pursuit, alongside Ted-Jan Bloeman and Hayden Mayeur.
Speaking toward the 1,000m, which Howe is a two-time national champion, he said he will continue racing the shorter race this season. A week prior at the Four Continents championship races, also in Japan, Howe finished in fourth place in both the 1,500m and 1,000m.
“If I’m on a good one, I think I can be kind of up there [in the 1,000m], but a podium is kind of hard for that just ‘cause it’s not really my strength with the frontend speed, but the first week was actually one of my better ones in a while,” he said.
The next ISU World Cup Speed Skating starts this week (Nov. 29 to Dec. 1) in Beijing, China.
Following that, the speed skaters will have a long break until the ISU World Cup returns to Calgary between Jan. 24-26 at the Olympic Oval.
