Ice skating: Skater lining up hit on Olympics

Shane Dobbin has his sights firmly set on the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Photo / Supplied

Former world champion inline skater Shane Dobbin is launching an audacious bid for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next year.

The former Palmerston North resident is now based at Hoogeveen in the Netherlands to make the most of the year-round ice facilities.

"Why stop my inline career while I was pretty much still at my peak?" Dobbin said. "The answer is simple - Olympics.

"Inline doesn't have Olympic inclusion. I decided in 2007 that I wanted the chance to go to the Olympics. I knew it would be very difficult to make it in time for 2010 in Vancouver. However, my improvements came faster than expected."

While the team to Vancouver will not be announced until towards the end of this year, Ashley Light, programme director of the Winter Performance Programme (WPP), says Dobbin has an excellent chance of qualifying.

"Speed skating can be a bit funny like that but they've just released their qualification criteria. There's five world cup events between now and the Olympics and you can either apply through points accumulation or time," Light said. "Based on what Shane's done over the past year he should be really well placed to qualify."

The 29-year-old has four inline skating world championships and is set to become the poster-child for the WPP's - a partnership between the New Zealand Academy of Sport South Island, Sparc, and the NZ Olympic Committee - targeting of inline skaters.

Light says Dobbin ticked all the boxes.

"He's a current and former world champion over long distances, he's got that high-performance work ethic and the crossover of skill-sets is very close."

There are a few idiosyncratic technical differences between the sports but the main one - that doesn't pertain to the temperature - is the speed.

"That's something he's adapting to. He's probably going from about 50km/h to 60km/h so it is not as pronounced as it would be if he were coming from running or something like that, but it is still significant."

Dobbin's specialty is endurance events and he has his sights trained on the 10km.

"I started out with marathon races on ice. I decided to use this method to improve as it is close to inline skating. We skate 100 laps on the 400m track and trust me, if you don't want to drop off, you find a way to improve.

"I will still be racing marathons this winter as I have a contract with my team running until the end of winter 2010. My sponsors have allowed me to represent New Zealand at several World Cup events in an effort to qualify for the Olympics."

Dobbin finished 14th in the 10km at last year's world champs, a result he described as satisfactory yet unfulfilling.