Patrick Meek
10,000: 13:26,06 min (December 29, 2012 in Salt Lake City )
Patrick Meek (born 10 November 1985) is an American speed skater who mainly on long distances ( 5000 and 10,000 meters ) and will start in the team race.
Career
Already Meeks grandfather and father were speed skaters, so he already came at the age of two years with the sport into contact and exercised it from there on. First, however, he did not train the normal speed skating, short track speed skating but. From 2000 he was in this discipline part of the U.S. youth teams, where he served for five years. During this time, his biggest success was winning the bronze medal at the national age group championships. At the beginning of the season 2004/ 05 denied Meek and his first race as a speed skater. The change of the sport he later founded it, he was aware of the many collisions in the short track speed skating enough. His first big success in the new discipline was reaching the third place in the team race at the Junior World Championships in Seinäjoki. There only had to give up the Dutch and defeated the Canadian team, he and his team-mates Michael Blumel and Paul Dyrud.
Within a year, Meek established among the top U.S. skaters; both the U.S. Championships as well as elimination race for places in the national team he reached regularly top ten results. Therefore, he was from 2005 a member of the A- squad and from 2007 also a regular participant at the ISU World Cup Speed . In the meantime, Meek won also a U.S. championship in the 10,000 meters - said he was however the only starter - and took part in the Winter Universiade in 2007, which he called one of his " coolest skating experience " and a " miniature Olympics " designated. In his first World Cup start in the 2007/ 08 season, Meek could not place in the top 30 and therefore did not reach World Cup points in the individual competitions. Was similar and the following season, in which Meek only with the team achieved a top ten result when he finished sixth at the World Cup kick-off in Berlin with Trevor Marsicano and Ryan Bedford. The year after, the Americans did not qualify for the more heavily infested World Cup team of his country. In December 2009, he missed at the U.S. elimination race over 10,000 meters in sixth qualifying for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, although he far surpass his personal best. Thereafter, the now 24 -year-old no longer managed to return to the World Cup squad and starts since the second-rate American Cup.
Professionally finished Meek 2004, the St. Louis University High from and studied since political science at the University of Utah. His coach is former endurance athlete Bart Veldkamp, the Meek especially for praises that he is " its focus entirely on the speed skating " sets.