Hello speed skating enthusiasts,
Whelp, looks like I’m back for Part 3. Once I got
going, I realized there were so many fucked up things to talk about. We’ve
covered some actual skating, we’ve covered some Canadian fuckups, and now it’s time
to cover the Philip Due Schmidt scandal taking over social media.
Does the ISU Hate Philip Due Schmidt? –
I’ve
seen a lot of stuff circulating on social media lately about Denmark’s Philip
Due Schmidt getting cut from going to the Olympics. The general story is that
he finished in the top 24 in the men’s mass start rankings, he got the time
standard, his country selected him for their Olympic team, and then the ISU
waited until he publicly announced that he was going to the Olympics to then
tell him he wouldn’t be able to go.
Now, parts of this are true. Yes, Due Schmidt managed
to get into the top 24 and get the required time standard, but that only meant
that Denmark was awarded a
provisional
quota. The reason they call them
provisional quotas is because the ISU has a rule where they only allow a total of
164 speed skaters at the Olympics. If fewer than 164 skaters get nominated by
their countries, then there’s no problem and all provisional spots lose their
provisionality. But if countries collectively nominate over 164 skaters, the
ISU then has the unpleasant task of whittling down the skater list until it
gets to that magic 164 number.
Since removing provisional quotas could be pretty friggin
controversial, the ISU has a very specific way of doing this that they announced
months ago (and haven’t changed since, which should have been obvious when I
said ISU and not SSC). They start by removing the bottom ranked skater in the women’s 500m, then the
bottom men’s 500m, then then bottom men’s 1000m, then the bottom women’s 1000m.
They repeat this with the 1500m and mass start for both sexes and then start
from the beginning and repeat until enough skaters have been removed to get the
total skater lists down to 164.
Every skating federation knew these rules. These rules
shouldn’t be a shock to any of them. When Denmark let Due Schmidt know that he was
getting a provisional mass start spot, they should have been clear that it was
provisional. And, knowing that he was the bottom ranked men’s mass start
skater, they should also have known that his spot was the 7
th
spot
on the chopping block if the ISU started trimming rosters.
It isn’t clear to me where the miscommunication
happened, but somehow we got to a point where Due Schmidt thought he was going
to the Olympics while in reality he was filling a provisional spot. When the
countries of the world submitted significantly over 164 names, the ISU followed
their publicly available rules and started doing the hard work of removing the
lowest ranked quotas.
The truth of the matter is that no one is getting
targeted here. The easiest way to not get cut from a provisional quota is to
just not be really low on the ranking list. I also want to say that understanding
that the ISU is just following the rules for the number of skaters they are
allowed to have attend the Olympics doesn’t mean you agree with the 164 skater cap.
I think a lot of us would rather see more skaters at the Olympics, but I also
understand why the ISU might follow their own rules and cut provisional spots
below the threshold.
Are Austrians Greasier Than McDonalds? –
This
next part throws adds a bit of complexity to this whole 164 maximum skater
mess. Long story short, some countries realized they could abuse the rules a
bit by taking quotas from safe, multi-distance skaters and give them to their
lower ranked skaters so that they could send their full team. The intent would
then be to have the better skater (who was nominated as an alternate in that distance) still skate that distance at the Olympics since they are better at it. To illustrate
this, I’m going to pick on Austria, though I can essentially guarantee any
skating federation worth there weight in peanuts is abusing this same rule if they
have a skater in an abusable position.
Gabriel Odor qualified Olympic quotas in the 1000,
1500m, and mass start. Ignaz Gschwentner, another Austrian skater that you likely
aren’t as familiar with, did not qualify any quota. But Gschwentner is on the
reserve list for the 500m and didn’t miss out on a spot by a whole lot. So, the
Austrians have decided to nominate Gschwentner as their 1000m skater and putt Odor as his
substitute. Odor will still get to go to the Olympics since his other ranks are
so high, but now Gschwentner gets to go too.
Their plan is obvious: as all these other countries’ skaters
get trimmed down due to the rule of 164, the men’s 500m field might lose a few
spots. For the sake of this example, let’s say it goes from 28 down to 26.
Then, once the magic 164 threshold is hit, the ISU then reallocates quota to
fill these distances (other than the mass start) not just back to 28 but
actually all the way up to 30 skaters based on the reserve list. We have to keep in mind that the reserve
list has two main rules: 1) you have to be competing in another distance to be
eligible and 2) you get to move up the reserve list if you’re going to be
filling your countries first spot in that distance.
Since Gschwentner is Austria’s top 500m male, he has been moved up on the reserve list (from the very bottom to third). And since the men’s 500m will be taking 3 or
4 men from the reserve list to fill out the event, Gschwentner is in a really
good position to get one of those freshly added 500m spots. Once he’s in, he’s fully
in. So he can then just decide to not race the 1000m, casually letting it slip back into
Odor’s hands. And I can guarantee that this is all being done very thoughtfully
and intentionally.
I realize this is a lot to take in, so I hope you’re
still following. The gist of it is that countries are easily able to abuse the rules
on substitutes and the reserve list to try to get their skaters in a favourable
position within the 164 skater limit. Is this fair? Hmm, depends how you look
at it. It definitely isn’t ethical, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong if we’re only
considering the literal rules as they are written.
Personally, I hate shit like this. But, I also think
you’d have to be stupid as a federation to not take advantage of this kind of stuff.
For the hockey fans out there, this is kind of like a few of the latest Stanley
Cup winners (Tampa, Vegas, Florida) that have abused Long Term Injury Reserve
rules to get around the salary cap. It doesn’t look great, and a lot of people
have a problem with it, but you’ve got to give credit to the managers that find
these rules and have the balls to actually abuse them.
So, after that long winded commentary and to answer
the question in the previous segment, the ISU likely doesn’t hate Philip Due
Schmidt but it’s pretty clear that the Austria does.
If You Feel Bad For Philip, Just Wait Till
You Hear What Happened To These Other Skaters –
So
we’ve settled it—the ISU probably doesn’t hate Philip Due Schmidt. Yet he still
seems to be drawing sympathy from lots of people online. I wonder how many of
these people feel even worse for Naomi Verkerk? For Alexa Scott? For Tim Prins?
Because these skaters all got cut from Olympic rosters due to a similar ISU rule
despite being in higher ranked quotas than Due Schmidt.
The rule of 164 is the main reason that the ISU has
any rules in place to trim down roster sizes. Obviously the aforementioned removal
of provisional quotas is the final step they take if absolutely necessary, but
they have other less talked about rules that try to limit the total number of
skaters.
The main one of these is the allocation of quotas for
each country for each sex. As a default, each country gets to send a maximum of
7 skaters per gender. This goes up by one if they qualify a TP spot and goes up
by another if they qualify a full quota based on ranked spots alone (versus
time spots), bringing the maximum max quota up to 9.
For a country like the Netherlands, this can be devastating.
With 17 total available spots but a strict 9 skater quota, there are always
Dutch skaters that qualify within that 17 but ultimately don’t get selected for
their team. Examples this year would be Naomi Verkerk and Tim Prins. Examples
four years ago would be Tijmen Snel and Dai Dai N’tab. And this isn’t just a Dutch
issue, as is evident by Canada’s Alexa Scott getting chopped from this year’s
Olympic team because she was the 9
th
ranked girl to qualify for the Olympics,
but the Canadian women only have 8 spots.
Much like the Philip Due Schmidts of the world, these
skaters are also missing out on their Olympic dream due to an ISU rule whose
intent is purely to trim down the total number of skaters. We can all agree it isn’t
fair for the individual skaters, but until the 164 skater limit is increased, the ISU is going to need
tools like this to keep the total number of skaters within the limit.
That’s all for now. I’ll be back soon with an update
to the Free Agent and Injury Trackers. I also promise not to come back with a Part
4. My rant is officially over! For those that still care about when the next
racing is gonna happen, international skating resumes on February 6
th
with the Olympic Winter Game in Milan, Italy.
Cheers,
Dad