Hello Managers,
With the World Cup season officially underway, it’s
time for us to talk fantasy speed skating on a near-weekly basis. Our team here
at FantasySpeedSkating.com is hoping to have posts here on the blog regularly from
now until the end of March. To all our returning readers: thanks for joining us
for another exciting season of speed skating shenanigans. To those of you who
are new to the column: you will NEVER get your time back once you’ve read a Dad’s
Column, so the safest thing to do is to close this tab immediately and never
look back. Can’t say I didn’t at least try to warn you.
I’ll be kicking this week off with the usual
Weekend
Recap
, followed by the
Injury Tracker
and the
Free Agent Tracker
.
Nothing too special for today, but I’ve got a couple of exciting interviews
lined up for the next few weeks so stay tuned.
World Cup 1 Recap
The weekend opened with the first of two women’s 500m
events. Kimi Goetz started her season off with a bang by landing on the top of
the podium – a career first for her. Last season she took home a solitary
bronze medal in the 500m. This is the third season in a row we’ve seen a brand
new 500m winner on opening night; 2021/22 was the start of Erin “Mediocre” Jackson’s
famous hot streak that ended with Olympic Gold and 2022/23 saw Kim “KMS”
Min-Sun kick off her nearly perfect World Cup season. Will Goetz follow in their
footsteps?
America claimed the top two spots in the 500m with
Jackson taking home the silver. Femke Kok, a favourite for the gold after some
impressive early season results, settled for bronze. Yukino Yoshida, in her
World Cup debut, raced her way to an incredible 4
th
place while
Kurumi Inagawa and Rio Yamada also finished within the top 7 in what was the
start to a strong weekend for Team Japan. Vanessa Herzog was buried in the
standings, finishing 12.
In the second 500m, Kok was the only skater to break
the 38 second barrier and handily finished first. Jutta Leerdam bounced back
after an 11
th
place finish in the first 500m to take the silver
medal in the second 500m event. Goetz fell to 3
rd
, narrowly beating
out her teammate Jackson for the second race in a row. Andzelika “The Woj”
Wojcik broke into A Group with a 12
th
place finish – nothing crazy
yet but she’s at least established herself as an A Group skater once again.
In the 1000m, Leerdam cruised to first place (as she always
does), but the margin was much closer than normal. Miho Takagi finished a tenth
of a second back and took the silver while Goetz was additional tenth back,
good enough for bronze. Qishi Li, Ivanie Blondin, Mei Han, and Ayano Sato all
cracked the top 10 while “Mediocre” Jackson is headed to B Group where she should
feel much more comfortable.
Takagi put on a clinic in the women’s 1500m, beating
out the field by almost two full seconds and skating the second fast time ever
skated in Obihiro (losing only to her own track record). Antoinette Rijpma-de
Jong snagged the silver medal and Goetz finished with the bronze—her 4
th
medal in two days. Yekaterina Aydova scratched and Nadezhda Morozova posted the
slowest time in what shaped up to be a terrible day for the Kazakhs. Ragne
Wiklund, Ivanie Blondin, and Ayano Sato, all recent medalist in this distance,
struggled to put together dominant races.
Despite a relatively weak 1500m, Wiklund crushed the competition
in the 3000m. She took the top spot by over 1.5 seconds and earned her teams
the valuable track record bonus points in the process. Momoka Horikawa finished
on the second step of the podium, a fantastic result for the Japanese N1. Rijpma-de
Jong was only able to skate the 3000m this past weekend due to Irene Schouten’s
absence but still put together a shockingly good race and finished third. Joy Beune
and Martina Sablikova rounded out the top 5. To no one’s surprise, Yuna Onodera
and Michelle “Ice Princess” Uhrig are facing relegation to B Group.
The women’s mass start was just about the weakest
field I can remember ever seeing, and that’s saying something in a distance
where the field is usually weak. Blondin, the only good skater there, easily finished
first (though some credit should also go to Valerie Maltais for helping to
close a gap and still finishing 4
th
). Esther Kiel, a joker, finished
with the silver while Mia Kilburg picked up her first bronze medal of the
season. There were maybe two other girls in that field that are worth their
weight in rice and both seriously underperformed.
Once again, I’ll be handing out the
Angelina
Golikova Memorial Award for Skating Good
each week to the woman who skates
the fastest lap. Jutta Leerdam popped off last year and made this weekly award
ceremony a bit more boring than I had anticipated since she won it basically
every weekend. So, the real question is: will anyone upset her this season?
For now, the answer is no. Leerdam once again takes
home the
Angelina Golikova Memorial Award for Skating Good
by skating a
26.97 lap in her 1000m. Congratulations to Jutta Leerdam for skating good (as
always).
On the men’s side, the first 500m was a home crowd-pleasing
Japanese sweep with Tatsuya Shinhama getting the gold, Wataru Morishige the
silver, and Yuma Murakami the Bronze, The only other Japanese skater in the
event, Takuya Morimoto, finished 5
th
. Hein “Daddy” Otterspeer beat
out some very tough competition and finished 4
th
, while Jordan Stolz
and Laurent Dubreuil narrowly missed the top 5. Nill Llip, the Spanish prodigy,
cracked the top 10. Kai Verbij, a former legend, finished 18
th
and got
sent down to B Group.
In the second 500m, the top two skaters reversed roles
with Morishige taking the 25 points for first and Shinhama falling just a step behind
into second place. Stolz managed to prevent another Japanese sweep by beating
out Yudai Yamamoto by 0.003 seconds for the bronze medal. Four of the top five skaters
were Japanese while three of the bottom five were Polish. Is anyone surprised?
Stolz was undoubtedly the favourite going into the men’s
1000m but he had to settle for third. Zhongyan Ning is clearly back in top form
as he skated his way to a silver medal, while Masaya “One Hit Wonder” Yamada
somehow won the event. I would like to point out that Yamada skated a track
record in Obihiro the last time that the city hosted a World Cup, so maybe this
race was just a bit of a hometown hero effort, giving it his all in front of
his mom and dad. Regression next week is all but certain. Laurent Dubreuil and
Piotr Michalski, the 2
nd
and 4
th
place finishers in this
event at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, both finished in the bottom three.
Stolz was also the favourite in the 1500m but couldn’t
pull off the win and had to be happy with silver. This time he managed to beat
out Ning (by a measly 0.004 seconds, his second medal of the weekend by such a
tiny amount), but Masaya “Two Hit Wonder” Yamada once again prevailed and
shocked the world with back-to-back gold medal performances. Is this sustainable?
(Hint: the answer is a resounding “No”). Equally as shocking was Peder Kongshaug
not finishing 4
th
—a result we had all come to expect. Connor Howe—one
of the favourites for a podium spot and the current season time leader—finished
in the bottom three along with his teammate Antoine Gelinas-Beaulieu. Both will
likely skate in B Group next weekend.
The men’s 5000m saw the most dominant podium of the
weekend. Patrick Roest dropped a pair of 28s in the last two laps and earned
himself a gold medal along with the track record bonus points, Davide Ghiotto
and his big legs and slow tempo finished second, and Norway’s Sander Eitrem finished
third. The next closest skater, Ted-Jan Bloemen from the NetherlandsCanada,
finished 5 seconds behind the podium. He celebrated pretty hard, so I guess he
likes losing? At least that’s something he’s good at, based on last year's
World Championships 5000m results. Stolz, skating in an A Group 5000m spot
earned by his teammate Ethan Cepuran last season, finished 14 and will now be
tossed in with the B Group shitters. We now have proof that he can’t quite do every
distance better than everyone else, just most of them.
Last but not least was the men’s mass start. With the
new A Group/B Group format that no longer involves semi-finals, there were a
few extra jokers in the mix allowing for the top skaters to relatively easily
finish up top. In what was one of the closest 3-way photo finishes I’ve seen in
quite some time, Bart Hoolwerf took the gold
and didn’t start crying – a
miracle!!
The better Bart (last name Swings) finished in second and Livio Wenger
finished third. The next four across the line were Gelinas-Beaulieu, Andrea Giovannini,
Lee Seung-Hoon, and Chung Jae-Won, an elite selection of mass starters with an incredible
tally of World Cup, World Championship, and Olympic mass start medals to their
names.
Finally, we have a new award on the men’s side that I’ll
be handing out each week. The
Pavel Kulizhnikov Yardcare Inc. Award for
Skating Good
will go to the man who skates the fastest lap in any event
over the course of a race weekend.
The first person to be honoured with such a prestigious
award is Wataru Morishige with a 24.96 lap in his second 500m race. The only
skater to break 25 seconds in a lap at World Cup 1, he actually managed to do
it twice by hitting a 24.99 lap in the first 500m event as well. Congratulations
to Japan’s Wataru Morishige for skating really good.
Injury Tracker
Yekaterina Aydova
–
Underwhelming results have the armchair experts speculating that a groin injury
is holding her back. I tried reaching out the Kazakh team doctor for
confirmation but he hasn’t got back to me yet.
Kai Verbij
–
After years and years of elite skating, Verbij is currently suffering from a
bout of “
B Group Shitter-itis
”. The road to recovery is looking long and
hard for Verbij. Thoughts and prayers buddy, thoughts and prayers.
Nadezhda Morozova
–
A fine 1000m, a terrible 1500m, and a scratched 3000m. Some people think she’s
sick, others say she got caught doping. To be honest, I have no idea what’s
going on here. Here’s to hoping it’s a passing illness, but the reality is that
she could just be bad a skating again.
Jorrit Bergsma –
After
an embarrassingly bad Dutch Trials for this long-distance king, we officially have
the first clear signs of that deadly disease:
Old
. We don’t have any
confirmation that he has cheated on Heather yet, but previous case studies have
always
shown that, when it comes to
Old
, all roads lead to
Claudia Pechstein.
The Canadian Men’s National Team
–
After a pretty underwhelming first weekend that involved zero medals and six
relegations to B Group in seven A Group events, this group has been diagnosed
with “
having a bad time
”.
Botond Bejczi
–
This Hungarian joker has not NOT lost a race in forever… until he beat Allan Dahl
Johansson in a B Group 500m on Sunday. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a win
nonetheless. After years of suffering from “
last place
”, Bejczi fought
back hard against his illness and is officially in remission.
Free Agent Tracker
We had A LOT of movement on the free agent front this
week as managers raced to pick up skaters who performed well above expectations
in Obihiro. Previous seasons suggest that rushing to pick up a free agent after
the first World Cup rarely pays off, with recent examples of Jun-Ho Kim, Hana
Nifantava and Masaya Yamada all coming to mind. It’s not that these skaters aren’t
good or that they don’t earn any points, but often they regress after a stellar
WC1. There is an opportunity cost when using one or sometimes even two free
agent pickups so early in the season as there are always better picks further
down the road. Free agent pickups are a scarce resource and should be treated
as such.
That being said, some teams are dealing with injuries,
retirees, or drunk drivers and need to bolster their roster depth early on in
the season before they fall too far behind. This list is for those struggling managers.
Masaya Yamada
–
Does ANYONE remember last year when Yamada popped off at WC1 and managers were
stumbling over each other to pick him up and then he quickly became a bench
skater? Clearly not, because Masaya is now unavailable as a free agent after
getting picked up in the 4 pools he wasn’t drafted in.
Rio Yamada
–
Though her weekend may have been outshone by another Yamada, Rio had an
impressive weekend and deservedly got picked up by a 5
th
team. She
is no longer a free agent.
Taiyo Nonomura
–
Another Japanese skater with a strong first weekend, Nonomura went undrafted
but is currently sitting well inside the top 30 in the skater rankings. One
manager has taken the plunge and added this mid-distance free agent to their
roster.
Hein Otterspeer
–
He may be getting old and he may not have qualified in his best distance, the
1000m, but goddamn is he handsome. He’s also somehow still putting up respectable
points and is still available in one pool.
Elizaveta Golubeva
–
Some managers have already soured on this Russian/Kazakh skater and cut her from
their rosters. She has been relegated to free agent status in two pools.
Kurumi Inagawa
and
Yukino Yoshida
– Looking to add some depth sprinters to your roster?
Both of these 500m skaters had solid opening weekends. Was it just a bit of
magic meant to please the home crowd? Or will these results be sustainable?
That’s for you to decide and me to find out. Both are still a free agent in at
least one pool.
Zach Stoppelmoor
–
A pair of strong B Group sprints has Stoppelmoor headed to A Group in Beijing
in both the 500m and 1000m. Is he worth picking up? Probably not yet.
Livio Wenger
–
Always reliable for a few points in the mass start, Wenger stepped up his game
and landed on the podium for the first time in a while. He is still available
in most pools.
Yudai Yamamoto
–
I’m surprised to see this skater getting picked up by more teams than Takuya
Morimoto. I’m less surprised to see managers making questionable free agent
pickups early on. If you really want this guy (or Morimoto for that matter), he’s
probably still available in your pool.
Mia Kilburg-Manganello
–
After getting scooped up by one last team, Mia is no longer a free agent in any
pool.
Mei Han
and
Nadezhda
Morozova
– Both these skaters were shockingly dropped by one manager each,
but then both were quickly picked up (and rightly so). You’ll have to be faster
if you want either of them next time around.
Sverre Lunde Pedersen
–
It’s too early to say forsure, but things are shaping up for a bounce back year
for Pedersen after a brutal career-pausing bike crash a few seasons ago. This
former 1
st
round pick is currently available in three pools. Whether
or not you get him on your team, you should all be cheering for him to have a
good season.
Michele Malfatti
–
Another skater coming back from an injury, Malfatti started off the season with
a very respectable 5000m race. He got snagged by one manager (in what has been
described by local experts as a “braindead move”) but is still a free agent in
the other four pools.
Zbignew Brodka
–
Not all heroes wear capes. In fact, some heroes wear nothing at all. Last seen
about four months ago scurrying through the Polish woods in a region devasted
by wildfires, reports say he was butt naked except for a large gold medallion covering
his family jewels. Brodka has officially entered the realm of myth. He’s also
still available in all five pools.
That’s just about all I’ve got for today, folks. World
Cup racing resumes this Friday in Beijing with World Cup 2.
Remember to submit
your active roster and pick up any free agents you want by 11:59 PM MST on
Thursday, November 16
th
.
Happy World Cup watching and I’ll see you all again
next week for a World Cup 2 recap and an update to the
Crappy Tire Power
Rankings
!
Best,
Dad