Short Track Desert Classic Pulls Skaters from the World

Aug. 13, 2024, 4:16 PM (ET)

This year’s Short Track Desert Classic was one for the record books! With 18 hours of racing over two days and 143 registrations, it was the largest field in the history of the event. We saw incredible early season racing from our World Class Open A division all the way down to our youth development age groups. Skaters representing the counties of Australia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Denmark, Hungary, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, and the United States brought excitement and enthusiasm to the Utah Olympic Oval’s north ice sheet over the weekend and the crowd showed their appreciation with every crash, pass and high-speed turn. Derek Parra stated “In my opinion, this year’s “Mixed Gender” -non elimination format created better racing for all groups at all levels”.

USS ST Program Director, Andrea DoDuc said “The mixed gender format offered valuable racing opportunities for all skaters, serving as solid preparation for the upcoming season. The Desert Classic had another impressive turnout, and it's always great to see the next generation of athletes competing alongside our National Team.”

A special THANK YOU to all our volunteers and officials that helped to put on this incredible event! We could not have done it without the experience, generosity and knowledge of so many! Thank you again! Here are the top three finishers in each division:

Open A

1^stBrandon Kim

2^nd Katsunori Koike

3^rd Ibuki Hayashi

Open B

1^st Ami Hirai

2^nd Aoi Watanabe

3^rd Olimpia Kazanecka

Open C

1^stEvan Paladino

2^ndRobert Tolliver

3^rdVincent Chen

Combined D

Ladies

1^stEmma De Bock

2^ndTiffany Zhang

3^rd Makayla Chou

Men

1^st Nicholas De Bock

2^ndRyan Haung

3^rdMatthew Zhang

Combined E

Ladies

1^stHannah Huang

2^ndJulia Wu

3^rdLeyan Xing

Men

1^st Damien Lee

2^nd Sawyer Brimley

3^rdMarcus Liu

Combined F

Ladies

1^st Juliandrea Crane

2^nd Jasmine Oler

3^rd Justyn Bruinsholz

Men

1^st Cayden Lau-Hong

2^nd Ethan Yin

3^rdMiles Jiang

We are now looking forward to our second event in our annual summer racing series. The Long Track Desert Classic will be held on August 30-September 1. Distances of 500m-5,000m will be offered. Look for our registration link to be out this week! Hope you see you here on the FASTEST ICE ON EARTH!