Record Breaking Year at Indoor Nationals

With Speed Nationals first this year, and skating on brand-new and perfectly cured roll-on, the stage was set for the fastest indoor Nationals ever. We weren’t disappointed! During the first day, 19 National records fell. The second day 23 National records hit the dust for a total of 42 records broken. The most records to fall in any one year prior to this had been 40, and we still weren’t done with Standard individuals! Stay tuned for the final record count.

GT Speed claims National Gold!

For Individuals, GT came up with two National Champions in the Junior Division. Ryan Cox is this year’s Junior Men’s Champion and Kacey Huntington is the Junior Women’s champion. Both Ryan and Kacey showed the strength of their preparedness and training as they overcame a tough field to come out on top.

Ryan almost fell in the short race elimination, but managed to hang on for 3rd and pull out the Gold in the finals. Ryan triumphed over serious contenders Adam Miller, Joey Collazo, Michael Evins and several bad boys from Champions: Steven Raney and Billy Robinson.

Kacey beat almost-World-team member Candace Rosekopf and Michelle Bizeau to become the Jr. Women’s champion. She had lots of help from teammates Jilleanne Rookard and Erin Vanyo. Jill showed her astonishing start capabilities, beating the field to pylon 1 almost every time.

By the end of the Division competition, GT Speed was in third place overall in the high point team competition behind Team Florida and Piedmont. Stay tuned for the final results of the team competition.

Other placements include:
Justin Mitten - Silver medal, Freshman Boys
Russell Parmely - Bronze medal, Classic Men

GT Continues Winning in Relays

GT Juniors Ryan Cox and Erin Vanyo surprised the field to win the Gold medal in the Senior Two Mix competition. In the Sr Two Lady competition, Kacey Huntington and partner Erin Vanyo claimed the Silver while Lucretia Lobo and Jilleanne Rookard took the Bronze. Both sets of GT teams were surprised in the last lap by a last ditch effort by Mindy Smith from Greensboro, NC who passed them for the Gold.

In the Master 2 Man competition, GT Skaters William Thigpen and Dominic Manganello hung on to claim the Bronze medal.

The strength of the GT Senior Ladies could be seen when they joined together to compete in the Senior 4 Lady competition. Jilleanne Rookard, Erin Vanyo, Kacey Huntington and Lucretia Lobo came home with the Gold Medal.

The Freshman Four Man relay, which overcame much adversity, showed true grit when they skated under the 1998 National Record of 3:12:31 set by Federal Way, WA and finished in 3:11:09. However, it was only good enough for the Bronze medal as Team Florida demolished the National Record with a win of 3:06:xx to claim the Gold. Teammates Justin Mitten, Jon Shrout, Jono Gorman and Ben Lombardi overcame a broken nose and operation to Ben Lombardi and a fall at the Regional championships to place at Nationals.

Congratulations to these winners and to all the others on GT Speed's Nationals team who worked really hard, but came up short due to the intense competition which is always present at Nationals. We had some bad luck, but everyone did their best and all are winners to us!