Two Fen skaters from Sutton visited Holland over the weekend to take part in the inaugural British Longtrack Speed Skating Championships.
Skaters from all over the UK, and expats now living in Norway and the USA travelled to the Hague to compete on the 400m ice oval, in distances from 300m, up to 5,000m.
Sutton pair Malcolm Robinson and David Smith took to the ice on Saturday, in the 5000m championship, with the trophy for the competition having been donated by the Welney, Littleport and District Division of the Fen Centre.
Mr Smith said: “Although the ice oval is covered, heavy rain outside made for interesting conditions, as fog, appeared inside the building, which gradually became thicker and thicker, reducing visibility to about 60 metres.”
Although from the same village, the duo were not paired against each other, Robinson raced to a time of 9:00.61, whilst Smith recorded 9:25.42, putting them in second and thirrd place respectively, behind Alan Dobbie, from Scotland, who recorded 8:51.96 to win.
There were more then 30 British competitors and the dates for next year’s championships are already being planned.
Anyone interested go to uklongtrack.org or the UK Longtrack group on Facebook.
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