REDDITCH’S Charlotte Gilmartin played her part in helping the Great British short track speed skating squad claim four top ten finishes at the first International Skating Union (ISU) World Cup of the 2014/15 season between November 7-9.
The event, which took place in Salt Lake City, USA, saw the senior squad compete against the best speed skaters from around the globe.
The team’s most famous name Elise Christie and Jack Whelbourne led the way for the Brits with some solid performances. Christie raced to the final of the 1,000m and took fourth place overall after finishing second in her semi-final and she also came top in her semi-final race in the 1,500m distance, finishing fifth in the final.
Whelbourne broke the British record in the A final of the 1,000m, racing to a fourth place finish, which put him in seventh place overall in the 1,000m classification.
Gilmartin, who is based in Nottingham with the rest of the British squad, skated well to secure two top 12 finishes in her races with tenth place in the 500m and 12th place in the 1,000m.
She put in a strong performance to reach the quarter-final heats in both distances, finishing third in both races.
Her Solihull Mohawks team-mate Jon Eley also performed well, with two top 16 finishes in the 1,000m and 500m distances.
National Coach Nicky Gooch commented: “On the whole, the skaters performed pretty well. We narrowly missed out on a couple of medals which was disappointing, but this was only our second international event of the current season and we can’t always expect everything to work out straight away.
“It’s also been a few years since we’ve had a male and female skater in the A final on the same day, which is something we can take away from the competition.”
The junior squad were also representing Great Britain at the Alta Valtellina Trophy in Bornio, Italy, (November 6-9).
There were some good performances amongst the skaters, with Kathryn Thomson claiming gold in the 500m to finish third overall and Jack Burrows skating his way to two finals to finish fifth in the overall classification.
The senior squad are this weekend competing in World Cup 2 (November 14-16) in Montreal, Canada.
The coming weekend’s competition in Canada will be streamed live on http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/isu/index.html.
