The Alau Ice Palace () is an 8,000-seat speed skating oval in Astana, Kazakhstan. It was ranked first among the world’s speed skating stadiums according to the Dutch AD Sportwereld publication’s ranking. As well as speed skating, it is also used for other sports and was opened in December 2011.
Events The center hosted the speed skating events at the 2011 Asian Winter Games. In 2015, it hosted the World Sprint Speed Skating Championships.
For judo it was the venue for the 2015 World Judo Championships in August 2015 and for ice speedway it hosted final 1 of the 2018 Individual Ice Racing World Championship.Ice Speedway World Championship to be hosted by Astana
It has also hosted national youth championships in rink bandy.
History Construction of The Oval began in 2007, nearly four years after Astana and Almaty had been designated hosts of the 2011 Asian Winter Games. Construction was completed by the end of the summer of 2011, officially opening in December 2011, two months before the beginning of the Games. The Alau Ice Palace was designed as the first covered speed skating oval in Kazakhstan, and as the second ever artificially frozen speed skating venue after Medeu. Being domed, this would give the facility the ability to control climate conditions inside to produce the highest quality ice possible.
The Alau is an artificially frozen indoor skating rink with a standard speed skating track of 400 meters to the lap. The radii of the inner and outer competition lanes are 26 and 30 meters respectively. The width of each competition lane is 4 meters with an inside training lane of 4 meters.
When not hosting speed skating competitions, The Oval is open to public skating and family day events.
Track records MenEventTimeNameNationDateRef500 meters34.52Dai Dai NtabDecember 3, 20162 x 500 meters70.000Joji KatoFebruary 2, 20111,000 meters1:08.66Shani DavisNovember 30, 20131,500 meters1:45.06Denis YuskovNovember 29, 20133,000 meters3:39.36Wouter olde HeuvelNovember 26, 20115,000 meters6:13.83Sven KramerNovember 26, 201110,000 meters12:50.40Jorrit BergsmaDecember 2, 2012 WomenEventTimeNameNationDateRef500 meters37.27Lee Sang-hwaNovember 29, 20132 x 500 meters76.090Yu JingFebruary 2, 20111,000 meters1:14.10Brittany BoweFebruary 28, 20151,500 meters1:56.10Christine NesbittNovember 26, 20113,000 meters4:02.90Martina SáblíkováDecember 2, 20165,000 meters6:59.88Martina SáblíkováNovember 29, 2013
See also List of indoor arenas in Kazakhstan List of indoor speed skating rinks
References
External links Official website Alau Ice Palace on SpeedSkatingNews.info SCADA visualization and control system of the Alau Ice Palace