24 hours speed skating in Le Mans and the Miami Ultra Skate
One 24 Hours skating race takes place on the Bugatti Circuit in Le Mans (France). The length of the track is 4.85km. This event became the biggest European event of skating and host occasionally more than 15 000 persons coming from more than 22 different countries. These 24 hours of non-stop racing are made by teams from 1 to 12 participants. This event gathers the best skating teams of the world but also many amateurs participate. The professionals and the amateursl skate at the same time.
At 4:00 pm, starts the race with a typical " LE MANS start" where the skaters dash at the edge of the track in socks, their skates being on the other side.. The event ends the next day at the same time. For an impression of ythe admosphere we present a video of Power slide
At 4:00 pm, starts the race with a typical " LE MANS start" where the skaters dash at the edge of the track in socks, their skates being on the other side.. The event ends the next day at the same time. For an impression of ythe admosphere we present a video of Power slide
The procedure for teams is as follows. Each skater can skate as many laps as he wants but there is always only one skater of the team skating on the track. On the start/finish line another person can take over the skating by honding over the stick to next skater. Each skater is allowed to enter more than one time in the race as long as they stick to the described rule. The total number of rounds a team has made is the sum over all skaters.
I have not been able to find results of the top teams in this race through time.
But the team which skated the most laps in 2017 was a mixed team of MRS that skated 201 round in 24 hours.This means that they together skated a bit more than 841 km. That means that they skated with a speed of 35 km/h. This is an impressive result. This is clear if we compare this with the result of one of the best long distance speed skater Bart Swings.
The record of Bart Swings
The best time skating one round was realized by Bart Swing. He needed for this round only 5 minuter and 32 seconds. In the video below one can see how fast he skated, up hill but even more so down hill. In comparison with him it seems that the other skaters stand still or move very slowly. Down hill he reaches a speed of more than 70km/h.
I have not been able to find results of the top teams in this race through time.
But the team which skated the most laps in 2017 was a mixed team of MRS that skated 201 round in 24 hours.This means that they together skated a bit more than 841 km. That means that they skated with a speed of 35 km/h. This is an impressive result. This is clear if we compare this with the result of one of the best long distance speed skater Bart Swings.
The record of Bart Swings
The best time skating one round was realized by Bart Swing. He needed for this round only 5 minuter and 32 seconds. In the video below one can see how fast he skated, up hill but even more so down hill. In comparison with him it seems that the other skaters stand still or move very slowly. Down hill he reaches a speed of more than 70km/h.
His time for one lap was 5min 32sec. This means that his average speed was: 45,33km/h.This is also the speed with which he skated his record in the 40 km of Berlin. With a team of his quality he could skate close to 1.100km. More realistic would be to assume that the team in average can skate 40km/h then this team would skate 960km in 24 hours. Looking at the result of the team in 217 it is quite an impressive result skating 841km.
The record of Francisco Ramirez
The Miami Ultra Skate 24 hours has become one of his favorite events ever in the USA.The procedure is the same as in Le mans but in this race also skate boarders participate. A skater who also likes this event very much is Francisco Ramirez which we have already mentioned as long distance speed skater in the A2A race. He became a very enthousiast participant in the Miami Utra Skate event. There he skated alone and tried to determine how many kilometers he could skate alone in 24 hours. It will be clear that he can´t skate during the whole time. One has to take breack between the skating sessions. He realized as his best result that he can skate a bit more than 500 km in 24 hours.
He comments on his last participaton as follows::" I skated over 500 Kilometers in 24 Hours for the second year in a row. This year it was more challenging, but it was also a lot more fun. I stopped and rested and then went faster for a marathon at a time.
Can you imagine what it means to skate alone 500km in 24 hours. Only extremely good long distance speed skaters can realize such a result.
He comments on his last participaton as follows::" I skated over 500 Kilometers in 24 Hours for the second year in a row. This year it was more challenging, but it was also a lot more fun. I stopped and rested and then went faster for a marathon at a time.
Can you imagine what it means to skate alone 500km in 24 hours. Only extremely good long distance speed skaters can realize such a result.