'Everything is made to turn left': Science of the skates behind Canada's powerhouse short track team

Chris Jones reports from Milan.

Maxime Laoun, a member of Canada’s ascendant short track speed skating team, owns 12 sets of blades, each assigned a number. He brought five to Milan. They are allegedly identical in every respect, hand-hewn but machine measured. Laoun can still feel the invisible differences between them. Two are his co-favourites.

“Numbers 8 and 9,” he said before practice on Saturday.

Those will be his competition blades.

Athletes are famously fetishistic about their equipment. Tiger Woods once found a two-gram discrepancy in his driver; British cycling great Mark Cavendish threw his bike in a ditch during a training ride after his saddle was less than a degree out of level.

Even among true obsessives, the 29-year-old Laoun is more fine-eyed than most. When Marc Schryburt, the team’s director of high performance, was asked which member was most particular about his skates, he didn’t hesitate: “That’s Max,” he said.

A speed skate begins with the boot, which is custom made for each athlete. Their feet are scanned by a computer and cast in plaster for good measure. Layers of carbon fibre are wrapped around that mould with enough care to include a pocket for the knuckle of each toe.

Laoun has only one pair of boots, which he’s worn for about 18 months, always without socks. For a pathological tinkerer, that’s a relative eternity. “I love them,” he said. “It took a few times for me to find my perfect fit. I like to be really, really close to my skates.”

For his long journey to Milan, he kept his precious boots in his carry-on bag. He put two sets of his blades in his checked bag. He gave one set to a friend, and two more to Laurent Daignault, the team’s skate tech. “We spread them apart and hope they’re