Minto athlete Paisley Perrie had a tough time at the In-line Speed Skating World Championships in Italy last week. After competing hard in several races in the track portion of the event, a couple of bad falls left the 15-year-old Canadian junior ladies champion too battered to continue with the road racing portion of the competition.
Alex Perrie, Paisley’s father and speed skating coach, reports that several days of heavy rain after the Canadian contingent arrived on Sept. 3 limited practice time to a couple of hours prior to the start of racing on Sept. 8.
Paisley’s first race was a 300 metre time trial.
“She skated well, but over 1.5 seconds slower than her time in Montreal (at the Canadian Championships),” states Alex in an email from Italy.
During a 10 kilometre points race that evening, Paisley was sitting in good position in the pack “until some physical stuff went on in one of the turns,” causing a fall. Although she got back up on her own, she suffered “quite a bit of road rash.” Of more concern was a swollen knee, which Alex says affected her skating on day two of the event, where she posted slower than usual times in the 1000 metre and 15 kilometre elimination events.
With her knee feeling better on Sept. 10, day three of competition, Paisley tackled the 500 metre event, her favorite.
“At the gun she had a great start and was settling into third. At about the 200-metre mark, all she remembers was a skater smashing her elbow into her head and crashing hard at top speed. She was carried off and the doctor from the USA cleaned up the scrapes,” reports Alex. With her knee “badly swollen” he reluctantly withdrew her from the subsequent road portion of the competition, rather than risk further injury and jeopardizing her participation in the upcoming ice speed skating season.
“She was very disappointed not to be able to do the road,” races, says Alex.
