RHO, Italy -- No crystal is colder and harder than speedskating ice. The precision it takes has meant that Olympic speedskaters person ne'er competed for golden connected a impermanent indoor rink – until the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games.
In the pursuit of maximum glide and minimum friction, Olympic officials brought connected crystal maestro Mark Messer, a seasoned of six erstwhile Olympic speedskating tracks and the crystal technician successful complaint of the Olympic Oval successful Calgary, Canada — 1 of the fastest tracks successful the satellite with implicit 300 records.
Messer has been putting that acquisition to enactment 1 bladed furniture of crystal astatine a clip since the extremity of October astatine the caller Speed Skating Stadium, built wrong adjacent commercialized just halls successful the metropolis of Rho conscionable northbound of Milan.
“It’s 1 of the biggest challenges I’ve had successful icemaking,’’ Messer said during an interrogation little than 2 weeks into the process.
If Goldilocks were a speedskater, hockey crystal would beryllium mean hard, for accelerated puck question and crisp turns. Figure skating crystal would beryllium softer, allowing propulsion disconnected for jumps and truthful the crystal doesn’t shatter connected landing. Curling crystal is the softest and warmest of all, for controlled sliding.
For speedskating crystal to beryllium conscionable right, it indispensable beryllium hard, acold and clean. And very, precise smooth.
“The blades are truthful sharp, that if determination is immoderate dirt, the leaf volition suffer the edge,’’ Messer said, and the skater volition suffer speed.
Speedskater Enrico Fabris, who won 2 Olympic golds successful Turin successful 2006, has traded successful his skates to beryllium lawman sports manager astatine the speedskating venue successful Rho. For him, cleanable crystal means the conditions are the aforesaid for each skaters — and past if it's accelerated ice, truthful overmuch the better.
"It's much of a pleasance to skate connected this ice,'' helium said.
Messer’s archetypal Olympics were successful Calgary successful 1988 — the archetypal clip speedskating was held indoors. “That gave america immoderate advantages due to the fact that we didn’t person to interest astir the weather, upwind blowing oregon rain,’’ helium said. Now helium is upping the situation by becoming the archetypal crystal maestro to physique a impermanent rink for the Olympics.
Before Messer arrived successful Italy, workers spent weeks mounting up insulation to level the level and past a web of pipes and rubber tubes that transportation glycol — an antifreeze — that is brought down to minus 7 oregon minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 to 19.4 degrees Fahrenheit) to marque the ice.
Water is tally done a purification strategy — but it can’t beryllium excessively pure, oregon the crystal that forms volition beryllium excessively brittle. Just the close magnitude of impurities “holds the crystal together,’’ Messer said.
The archetypal layers of h2o are applied slowly, with a spray nozzle; aft the crystal reaches a fewer centimeters it is painted achromatic — a afloat day’s enactment — and the stripes are added to marque lanes.
“The archetypal 1 takes astir 45 minutes. And past arsenic soon arsenic it freezes, we spell backmost and bash it again, and again and again. So we bash it hundreds of times,’’ Messer said.
As the crystal gets thicker, and is much stable, workers use consequent layers of h2o with hoses. Messer attaches his hose to hockey sticks for easier spreading.
What indispensable perfectly beryllium avoided is dirt, particulate oregon frost — each of which tin origin friction for the skaters, slowing them down. The extremity is that erstwhile the skaters propulsion “they tin spell arsenic acold arsenic imaginable with the slightest magnitude of effort,’’ Messer said.
The Zamboni crystal resurfacing instrumentality plays a cardinal relation successful keeping the way clean, cutting disconnected a furniture and spraying h2o to marque a caller surface.
One situation is gauging however rapidly the h2o from the resurfacing instrumentality freezes successful the impermanent rink.
Another is getting the crystal to the close thickness truthful that the Zamboni, weighing successful astatine six tons, doesn’t displacement the insulation, rubber tubing oregon crystal itself.
“When you thrust that out, if there’s thing moving it volition move. We don’t privation that,’’ Messer said.
The rink got its archetypal large trial connected Nov. 29-30 during a Junior World Cup event. In a imperishable rink, trial events are usually held a twelvemonth earlier the Olympics, leaving much clip for adjustments. “We person a precise tiny model to learn,’’ Messer acknowledged.
Dutch speedskater Kayo Vos, who won the men’s neo-senior 1,000 meters, said the crystal was a small brushed — but Messer didn’t look excessively concerned.
“We went precise humble to start, present we tin commencement to alteration the temperatures and effort to marque it faster and inactive support it arsenic a harmless ice,’’ helium said.
Fine-tuning the aerial somesthesia and humidity and crystal somesthesia indispensable beryllium done methodically — taking into relationship that determination volition beryllium 6,000 spectators successful the venue for each event. The adjacent existent trial volition beryllium connected Jan. 31, erstwhile the Olympians instrumentality to the crystal for their archetypal grooming session.
“Eighty percent of the enactment is done but the hardest portion is the past 20 percent, wherever we person to effort to find the values and the mode of moving the instrumentality truthful each the skaters get the aforesaid conditions and each the skaters get the champion conditions,’’ Messer said.
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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
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