Hello speed skating enthusiasts,
We finally made it. Four more days of racing and this
season will finally be over. If you’re as obsessed with speed skating as I am then
this is both a happy and a sad time. The excitement of tallying up the final
points and seeing who came out on top is akin to Christmas in March (but better
tbh). Sadly, this also marks the start of a very long, cold, lonely summer filled
with almost no skating to watch. If I could hibernate I would absolutely dig a
hole in the ground and fall asleep in there until the semi-respectable racing of
September wakes me from my long slumber. One can only dream.
That’s enough moping about though. Before the
depression settles in, we still get to enjoy one of the more exciting events of
the year. Or I guess of the two-year period, ever since the ISU made the ridiculous decision
to host World Sprint and Allround Championships every second year (probably to
make room in the schedule for everyone’s favourite event: the mixed gender
relay).
We have a delightful starting list in all four events
this weekend. For those of you that remember the pain of watching this event
unfold in the post-Olympic, post-Russian ban, mid-COVID carnage that was 2022,
this year’s World Champs is shaping up to be much better. It’s fair to think of
2022’s event as a rotten baloney sandwich and 2024’s event as an endless taco
buffet.
Every respectable country is represented this weekend,
with only a handful of top skaters missing from the start line. Interestingly, three
of the four sprint and allround champions of 2022 have since retired from
skating so we will see a slate of new champions crowned this year. The only
defending champion competing this weekend is Jutta Leerdam, but she’s been
spending too much energy fucking Jake Paul and will need to skate her best
weekend of the season to hold off Kok, Takagi, Goetz, KMS, Herzog, Jackson,
Tian, and essentially every good sprinter on the circuit.
Today, I’ll quickly run through each event and give
you an idea of what I expect. I’ll follow this up with the final
Injury and
Free Agent Tracker
of the season.
Dad’s 100% Completely Accurate Opinions
About Each Event This Weekend
If you’ve learned anything from reading this column
all year, it’s probably that I am never wrong. NEVER WRONG. So listen closely losers.
I’m not making unhinged predictions in this section, I’m just telling you what’s
actually going to happen. If you’re on the hunt for some free agent pickups
then you might even get a few ideas before we get to the Free Agent Tracker
lower down.
World Sprints – Women
Podium Favourites: Kok, Leerdam, Goetz,
Takagi
Potential Upsets: Min-Sun
Dark Horse: Grevelt
Wait, You Have To Race Multiple
Distances?: Jackson, Tian
Point Gobblers: Herzog, Yamada, maybe
Bosiek
Who?: Kristina Shumekova, Inessa
Shumekova, Kim Min-Ji
Women’s Sprints has a very competitive field, though the
top five skaters definitely stand out from the pack. My prediction? Leerdam and
KMS miss the podium as Kok, Goetz, Takagi finish at the top in that order.
That being said, KMS enters the event ranked 3
rd
and Leerdam in 5
th
with a brutal 500m seed time. The Dutch women
also all tend to crush the competition at sprints, so maybe Grevelt will pull
off a surprise podium finish. (jeepers, don’t think for even a second that I believe
what I just wrote. Yuck).
World Sprints – Men
Podium Favourites: Dubreuil
Potential Upsets: Nuis, Wennemers, de Boo,
Zurek, Liiv
Dark Horse: Kojima
Wait, You Have To Race Multiple Distances?:
Ning, Jun-Ho, Klein, Dombek, Magnussen
Point Gobblers: Bosa, Lorentzen, Kania
Who?: Altaj Zhardembekuly, Tuukka
Suomalainen, Ignaz Gschwenter
There is only one clear favourite on the men’s side
and that is Larry. He finished top 4 in both distances at Worlds. He was in first place after day one at the last World Sprints but then tested positive for
COVID and had to miss day two (along with the $13,000 USD prize money). He’s also
the most clutch skater on this list, aside from maybe Kjeld. But the thought of
Kjeld winning World Sprints is horrifying to me, so he’s stuck in the second
group.
Likely at least one Dutchman makes it onto the podium.
Zurek has podiumed in both distances this season so he’s also a threat. Kojima
is the real sleeper though—this is a guy who has qualified for the 500m and
1000m for the Japanese men’s sprint team. That automatically makes him competitive.
World Allrounds – Women
Podium Favourites: Beune, Groenewoud, Rijpma-de
Jong, Takagi
Potential Upsets: Han, Wiklund, Blondin
Dark Horse: Lollobrigida
Wait, You Have To Race Multiple
Distances?: Sato, Horikawa, Czyszczon
Point Gobblers: Maltais, Yang
Who?: Zuzana Kursova, Lea Sophie Scholz
Much like on the sprint side, Women’s Allrounds is
going to be a bit of a bloodbath. I’ve listed four podium favourites but the
list of women chasing this group is very, very stacked. With how Han has been
skating this season, it does feel bad doubting her. Opposite goes for Wiklund,
but if she can get back to how she was skating in the fall when no one could
beat her in a 3k then she could crack onto the podium.
Yang has been on a dream run but I just don’t see her
beating out most of these girls yet again. I’m also maybe being a bit hard on
Maltais as she is entering this competition ranked 0.01 samalogue points behind
Antoinette, but I’m just not a believer right now. Lollobrigida is harder than
those two for me to predict. She’s entering the competition ranked 2
nd
but hasn’t raced since the Quebec World Cup. Has she been busy prepping and tapering
for this competition? Or has she been off spending quality time with her
family? Maybe both? Guess we’ll have to wait and find out.
World Allrounds – Men
Podium Favourites: Roest, Stolz, Eitrem
Potential Upsets: Swings, Engebraten
Dark Horse: Ghiotto
Wait, You Have To Race Multiple
Distances?: Malfatti, Jansman, Maly
Point Gobblers: Wu, Pederson, Huizinga
Who?: Nuraly Akzol, Samuli Suomalainen,
Indra Medard, Jake Weidemann
Finally, a distance with three podium favourites! To
be clear, it looks like Stolz and Roest are going to be battling for first and
second while Eitrem just happens to be the next best skater. His spot is by no
means safe though as he’s been super up and down all season. If he’s off his
game, there are a couple of guys right behind him that will eagerly overtake
him in the standings.
When I started making this list, I put Ghiotto in the
Wait,
You Have To Race Multiple Distances?
category because his 5k and 10k are so
damn good and yet his 38.31 PB in the 500m would rank him 58
th
in
Canada
this season
behind national greats such as Arnaud Parent, Christo
Toshkov, Braeden Kremenik, and Marc-Antoine Brisson—all of whom are juniors and
none of whom I’ve ever heard of (and I’ve heard of a LOT of skaters in Canada). But I
doubted van der Poel in 2022 for the same reason and was then swiftly proven
wrong as I watched him annihilate the favourite, Patrick Roest. Odds Ghiotto
wins? Zero, but I’ll at least admit it’s possible for him to end up on the podium.
Injury Tracker
Tatsuya Shinhama –
A
bad crash on Monday resulted in a spinal cord compression fracture, ending his
season a week early. A bloody shame too since this guy started the season as a
favourite to win a Stolz-less World Sprints. Let’s just hope this injury isn’t career
ending.
Martina Sablikova –
Ankle
surgery has brought her season to an early finish too. Unlike Shinhama, the
injury doesn’t look super serious. Still, she’s old and frail and
clearly at the tail end of her incredible career so hopefully this is just a
little bump in the road on route to one last Olympic medal in 2026.
Merijn Scheperkamp –
This
poor Dutch boy’s broken heart now needs some mending. He led Wennemars at Dutch
sprint champs until the last race where Wennemars passed him by 0.025. His
teammates are also dropping like flies as a struggling Jumbo team dumps
shitters (aka Dai Dai and friends) left and right. Maybe this guy needs a
change of scenery next year.
Yekaterina Aydova –
She’s
still suffering from a knee injury so don’t expect too much from her. She also
seems to be going off the rails mentally as she has signed up to compete in
World Allrounds instead of Sprints… interesting choice for someone who skated
500m and 1000m races all season.
Brittany Bowe –
Still
suffering from
“old”,
Bowe won’t be racing this weekend. She’s been on a
downward trajectory since her incredible 2013 World Sprints competition and the
last decade hasn’t been kind to her. Will she even skate next season? Will she
be pregnant again? Will she succumb to old and die?
Sverre Lunde Pederson –
This
adorable Norwegian legend announced his retirement last week. He will be
present at Worlds this weekend for one last competition before hanging up the
skates. I’m currently crossing my fingers that he skates like he did in
Amsterdam while simultaneously knowing that’s a hopeless wish.
Havard Lorentzen –
He
saw his fellow Norwegian announce his retirement, got jealous, and decided to
yolo the decision for himself too. This former World Sprint Champion will also
be racing this weekend. Odds he claims one last victory?
Thomas Krol –
A
third legend announced his retirement this past week. The Olympic and World
Sprint Champion just didn’t have it in him to keep skating and is switching
careers to become a pilot. He’s also still dating his very young girlfriend,
though expectations are that she’ll soon get dumped now that she’s no longer a
junior.
Free Agent Tracker
To be honest, I listed off so many skaters in the
first section of this column that I don’t really feel like listing them all
over again here. Most of the skaters listed in my World Sprints and Allrounds
breakdown are taken in some (or all) pools, so it’s up to you this week to figure
out who is still free. Generally, it’s better to go for the sprinters (that all
race four times). Also, the sprint events seem to have a lot of strong free
agents still available (Grevelt, Tian, Wennemars, Kojima just to name a few).
If anyone has the balls to pick up Yu Wu, please do it.
That’s all for today. Racing starts tomorrow at 11AM
MST which means
rosters are due tonight at 11:59PM Calgary time
. Best
of luck setting your roster and best of luck to your teams this weekend. With $400
on the line and lots of points available this weekend, who knows what happens.
Cheers,
Dad