When Jeremy Wotherspoon laced up his skates and took to the ice, his field of vision narrowed. His world fell silent except for the deep cuts of his blades.
On a good day, he would move at blistering speeds. On better days, he would travel faster than anyone else on the planet, shattering 17 world records. To race at the edge of human limits is an overwhelming sensation, he said.
“It wasn’t until after I stopped that I would hear the wind for the first time or notice how hard I was breathing.”
Heralded as one for the greatest speed skaters of all time, Wotherspoon set most of his world records at a single venue: Calgary’s Olympic Oval.
Long track speed skaters have gathered this weekend for a world cup race at the 400-meter ice track at the University of Calgary. But there is growing fear the storied building has outlived its life expectancy.
Built for the 1988 Olympics, it was the first covered speed skating oval in the Americas. Before its construction, racers would suffer through strong winds, rain or snow. A facility sealed off from the elements meant speed skaters could focus on their internal rhythm and form to push as fast as possible.
But underneath the sprawling facility is an intricate array of 400 pipe connections used to make and maintain ice – and in recent years, those pipe connections have sprung damaging leaks.
“Everything that can be maintained, we’ve done,” oval director Mark Messer told the Canadian Press, warning the odds of a “catastrophic failure” increase with each leak. “The only way to actually fix this is to replace the floor. That’s most urgent. If we can’t make ice, we’re not an ice building.”
While the oval also hosts public skates, hockey games and a running track, its lore is tied exclusively to its famed ice.
Sitting at more than 1,000 meters above sea level, when first constructed Calgary’s venue was the highest indoor oval of its kind.
At higher elevations, frozen water contains less oxygen making it harder – and, for speed skaters, faster. At the same time, the air is thinner and so the athletes, clad in their spandex suits, hurtle forward at speeds not possible elsewhere on the planet.
Within a year of opening, it was dubbed “the fastest ice in the world”.
“On fast ice, you’re on the edge of what your movements and your body can handle,” said Wotherspoon, who set 12 of his 17 world records at Calgary’s Oval. “It’s a bit like running downhill: it’s easy to get out of control. And the fastest ice feels like you’re almost downhill. If you keep your timing and rhythm aligned, you’re truly moving at the edge of everything.”
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During the 1988 Olympics, world records were set in seven events and Olympic records in three. Over its 38-year lifespan, the oval has produced more than 300 world records. Only the venue at Salt Lake City has overtaken Calgary, where all ten speed skating events at the 2002 Olympic set Olympic records, as well as nine world records.
Inside a facility is a 10-foot long bronze relief titled Brothers of the Wind showing eight speed skating athletes as they drafting behind each other.
“Some of my most memorable skates at the oval were when they were nothing on the line. You weren’t racing, you were just having a fast day surrounded by your team. When you’re on the world cup circuit, it’s loud and you don’t see the people who help you on a daily basis,” said Wotherspoon. “And so there’s a beauty to the quieter days on the ice.”
The building was only meant to last 25 years when first built, and it’s now entering its 38th year. In order to stave off failure, a C$60m renovation is needed to, among other tasks, replace the floor and upgrade the ice plant.
Alberta’s sports minister says he’s been lobbying the federal government to fund the needed renovations because no private company will step in to fund the repairs. But the federal government says that while the track is a “vital part of Canada’s sport legacy”, the unique ownership structure of the oval means it isn’t eligible for certain federal money.
Two other covered ovals have been built in Canada – one in British Columbia and one in Quebec – but neither are the ground-zero for Canada’s national speed skating team. That program has become the envy of the world, both for the volume of Olympic medalists it has produced and the talent identification structure in place that funnels an inexhaustible supply aspiring athletes to the world stage.
The oval remains singular not just for its speed, but also for how it reshaped the sport.
Before it was built, Canada’s national team would spend months training in Europe and then once back home, pray for good weather.
“By having a training centre in Calgary, suddenly you had a place where you could go to school and train, and you could train in much better conditions,” Wotherspoon said.
“There’s no other way to look at it: it completely changed speed skating,” he said. “I don’t see how it could just close down. It would have to be condemned before people stopped using anything. And even then, I don’t think that would be enough to keep people off the ice.”
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