'Fastest ice' still red hot

KEARNS — The torch is lit in Torino. And in the cutting-edge sport of speedskating, world records are expected to be shattered.

But thousands of miles from the 2006 Winter Games, back in Salt Lake City, officials at the Utah Olympic Oval aren't worried. They say they can still hold on to the title of "the fastest ice on Earth."

Four years after the 2002 Winter Games, the Utah Olympic Oval still claims eight out of the top 11 world records in speedskating — three out of five women's races and five out of six men's.

Overall, the oval in Kearns has managed to retain 60 percent of the world records, including junior men's and women's distances.

It's a point of pride for Ken Weidauer, whose job at the Utah oval is to keep the ice clean, smooth and lightning fast. With world-class skaters clocking at speeds near 40 mph on a 1-millimeter-thick blade of steel, impurities in the ice can be a problem.

From the start, the Utah Olympic Oval wowed the world with its times. The oval hosted its first world-class competition in the spring of 2001. During the world championships in March that year, five world records were broken — as well as 11 championship records, 57 national marks and 127 personal bests.

More world records were to come during and after the 2002 Games.

Weidauer said the secret is in the ice and that Salt Lake City has the right recipe for creating a skating surface that looks like the polished hood of a sports car — and is just as fast.

Sitting near the ice track like a proud father, Weidauer said a combination of pure ice and high altitude is key.

"We're very strict with our ice," making sure people don't walk on it unnecessarily, he said.

Water is de-ionized in a state-of-the-art compressor system by mixing it with hydrochloric acid and caustic soda. Weidauer said this takes the free oxygen out of the water and prevents small bubbles from forming in the ice.

"The biggest thing is the elevation," he said.

With a higher altitude than most ice ovals, the low humidity and other factors make Utah's oval prime for setting world records.

Workers keep an eye on the ice temperature, even from home via a computer link. Automatic alarms are set to go off if the temperature fluctuates in either direction.