Rusty Smith, a 22-year-old on the National short track speed skating team that is based at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., is sharing a weekly diary during the World Cup season on his preparations for the Olympic team.

The first few days of training in Calgary, Canada were good. We got there and got everything setup after the horrible travel nightmare of last week.

RUSTY SMITH

Smith Age: 22 Hometown: Sunset Beach, Calif. Sport: Short track speed skating Accomplishments: In the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, he was 13th in the 1,000 and a member of the sixth-place relay team. At the 2000 Worlds, he placed fourth in the 1,000 meters, seventh in the 500 meters and eighth overall. Rusty's guide to his sport: "We're an all-around sport. We don't specify individual differences. We skate around a 111-meter track inside of a hockey rink. We skate with four to six people at a time, and the first one to cross the line wins. Individual distances: 500 meters is the sprint distance with 4½ laps; 1,000 meters, which is nine laps; 1,500 meters is 13½ laps; 3,000 meters is 27 laps. (The top eight scorers skate the 3,000, so you have to be a finalist in one of the other races.) In our sport, you are an individual except on the four-person relay team where you skate 5,000 meters, which is 45 laps. "The reason our sport is interesting to me is that is a sport where you race. You have heats, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals -- so you have to actually race against people instead of a clock. Unlike long-track speed-skating where it's a 400-meter oval, they are skating against a clock rather than other people. The top two advance out of each race. There are a lot of falls involved and little bit of bumping, shoving and pushing. "We get up to speeds of 35 mph, and we pull almost 6 G-forces going around the corner. For comparison, race cars pull just over 1 G and bobsleds pull around 2 or 3 G's. You're only doing it for a split second right at the apex of the corner. "There is a lot of contact and a lot of bumping that doesn't get called. In a lot of ways it is like auto racing: we bump, we push. To a point it's legal, but if you make someone fall, you're disqualified. A passing skater has to make a clean pass on the person in front of you and the other skater can get disqualified if they impede you by cutting you off."

Things went pretty well Thursday, the first day of World Cup competition in the 1,500 meters.

It's hard to know what to expect because you haven't had a competition since March. To make it even worse, I knew it was going to be a hard race because we had no World Cup points, which determine placement, so I was interested to see who I had in my first round.

My first race, I felt like I had been skating in competitions all along. Because of the extra competitors we had four rounds, but I reached the semifinals expecting to do well. It was a tough race. I was sitting in second place with about a lap to go and there was a pass on the outside from a Korean that was a little questionable. I fell in the last corner and ended up in fifth place. The referees didn't see it quite the way I did. I ended up being eighth overall in the 1,500, which is a decent placing, but I expect a lot more out of myself.

The day wasn't over yet. We had a 5,000-meter relay where we had to go for time because that was the only way we could qualify for the World Championships in March. It consists of eight exchanges of a lap and a half -- and you have to race at a 100 percent each time you go out.

In the middle of the race with about 16 laps to go, my teammate Apolo Anton Ohno had a real bad slip and fell into the wall. His helmet flew off. He got up three different times but fell each time. It was very scary.

When a teammate falls, we have to make a tag and then race with only three people for a chance to finish in the top two spots. Dan Weinstein, Ron Biondo and I skated real well and qualified.

I really looked forward to the second day of competition because my mother, Paula, flew in from Winnipeg, Canada. I hadn't seen her since this competition at Calgary the year before. It meant more to me to have my mom in the stands. I was looking forward to the 500-meter event -- plus it's one of my better races -- so I was really excited about it.

I won my first two rounds, no problem. In the quarterfinals, I had a world champion to my left and the Nagano gold medalist on the right. In the 500 meters, you have a specific dot that you stand over to show lane position. I was standing right over my dot, but the Korean World Champion tried to push me over to give him more room off his start. As he pushed, I slapped his hand off of me, and the whole crowd reacted. He tried to do it again -- putting his hand on my hip -- and I slapped his hand away again. The referee got involved and realized the Korean was in the wrong spot and moved him over. I had the whole crowd behind me at this point.

I ended up getting started third off the line. It was a real fast race. With a lap and a half to go, I made a real nice pass on the Korean. As I was passing him, he actually tried to hit me to get me disqualified, but I was so far past he didn't get a chance. I ended up getting second in the race and qualifying for the semifinals.

In the semifinal I was the first one out of the blocks and kept leading the race. I knew I was going pretty fast, but I didn't realize how fast. I led the race all the way into the last corner. But as I came out of it, I put my left skate down and the ice broke out from under me. I went into the wall at 35 mph and finished third, so I didn't qualify for the final. If I had stayed up, I would have broken the world record.

But the day wasn't over yet. We had to go for our best time in the 1,500 meters. Our American record is 7:03 from the 1998 Olympics. We had to skate 6:55 to even have a chance to qualify. Ohno had a slight concussion after the first day but came out and skated. We skated a perfect race breaking the American record by 15 seconds and skating 6:48. We were extremely pleased with ourselves and qualified for the final the next day.

On Saturday, our last day of competition, I reached the semifinals of the 1,000 meters. There I faced the current world champion, a former world champion, the reigning World Cup leader and the Canadian record holder.

With about six laps to go, two Koreans were in front. Team skating is illegal but does happen, so tried to make a difficult pass around the outside to keep them from being in the front the whole time. As I made my attempt, the man in second place moved wide and used his hand to keep me from passing. Finally, I was able to pass him and with three laps to go was leading. One of the Koreans passed me, but I was still sitting in second place with a ½ lap to go, but a couple of bad passes shoved me into fifth place, which is where I finished.

Overall in the competition, I finished sixth. I wanted to be higher than that, but I was skating well for a first competition.

We had our 5,000-meter relay final. We went out and skated really well, but one of my teammates made a pass that wasn't the best early in the race. We didn't know if we were going to get called for it or not. We ended up taking second place behind first-place Korea. Then Korea and our team was disqualified, so third-place Japan ended up winning the gold. Being disqualified was a disappointment, but we know we can do a lot better. Ohno recovered from his earlier spill and his performances gave him a second-place overall finish at the World Cup.

Right now, I'm in Salt Lake City getting ready for the Olympic qualifier that we have this week. My main goal is to help qualify the U.S. team to have a full amount of spots (two) at the Olympics -- we just have to make the top 32 overall. Our relay team has already qualified. My secondary goal is to try to break the 500-meter world record this weekend.