Begg hoping for a medal on the ice

Timaru Herald

CROSSING OVER: Timaru's Wayne Begg (centre) is trying his luck on ice in Holland with the hope of making the New Zealand Winter Olympic team.

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TIMARU could soon lay claim to a winter Olympian as Wayne Begg tries his luck on ice.

Begg, like his former world champion sister Nicole, has grown up on inline skates and competes in the World Inline Cup circuit in Europe.

The 25-year-old is keen to chase his Olympic dream in Vancouver in 2010 so has hung up his inline skates in favour of ice skates for the northern hemisphere winter.

Begg, together with world inline marathon champion Shane Dobbin, is training in northern Holland with a semi-professional team.

Both Begg and Dobbin have the backing of Sparc which has invested almost $40,000 in the transfer project as they look for potential champions in the Winter Olympics.

Begg is splitting his training time between the marathon, that pays the bills, and 1000m, where he thinks he has the best chance of meeting the qualifying standards.

The two ice disciplines require different skating techniques so Begg has been working hard.

Only a handful of athletes have made a success of moving across to ice but Begg has the determination to do so.

Sparc has also invested in a nationwide search for strong male athletes to form a New Zealand bobsled team that would compete at Vancouver and that team is also on the qualifying path.

While the investment may surprise many, New Zealand has a proud, albeit short, history in ice sports.

In the 1990s, a story to rival the Jamaican bobsled team unfolded: the New Zealand 5000m relay came from nowhere to score silver at the 1991 World Championships. And then there was gold in 1993 - in a world record time.

In-between Mike McMillan also held the short track 1000m world record in a time of 1:28.47s.

Both were among the favourites going in the Winter Olympics in 1992 but finished fourth with the relay missing bronze by one hundredth of a second.