Hello speed skating enthusiasts,
Though it was a short break, it’s been a successful
writing retreat as I was able to catch up on maybe 50% of the writing I should probably already be done. Which, by Dad’s
Column standard, is pretty damn good. This also reminds me of most of the
grades I got back in high school. Today I’ll go over the 3000m/5000m events and
both 1000m events. You’ll have to wait for the next column for any commentary
on the 5000m/10,000m events, for either of the 500m races, anything team pursuit related,
or any of the other events that we haven’t got to yet. So, in other words,
still lots to come!
Women’s 3000m
This event kicked off speed skating at the Milan Olympics
and boy oh boy was it a whopper. Things may have started a bit slow with
skaters like Greta Myers (representing manager Darius) skating a pretty
unimpressive time. As we got to the final three pairs, no one had broken 4
minutes yet and it seemed that our fears about slow ice were coming true.
But this all changed in the pair 8 matchup of Valerie
Maltais and Francesca Lollobrigida where both girls broke through the 4 minute
barrier. Lollobrigida was particularly impressive with a time of 3.54.28—a PB
for the World Cup circuit veteran and over 2.5 seconds under the Olympic record—but
Maltais’s time of 3.56.93 was also shockingly good, tying Irene Schouten’s
impressive Olympic record from 2022. Though three of the final four skaters
also managed to go under 4 mins, no one was able to touch Lollobrigida’s 3.54.28.
Considering Lollobrigida went into this race ranked 9
th
in the world
and hadn’t touch a podium all season, this was an incredible start to the
Olympics for the Italian multi-distance skater.
Rounding out the podium were Ragne Wiklund with the
silver and Valerie Maltais with the bronze. Wiklund was the top ranked long distance
skater in the world heading into this event and arguably the favourite to win
the whole thing after her dominant 3000m win at the 5
th
and final World
Cup of the season. She was also the only skater to medal in all four World Cup
3000m races.
Maltais was ranked 4
th
in the world, but the
only reason she wasn’t ranked 2
nd
was because of her terrible 5000m
race in Heerenveen at WC3. As for her 3000m races this year, they’d been pretty rock solid. She medalled in three out of four—tied for the second highest number
of medals behind only Wiklund. He worst result was a 4
th
place
finish—hardly a blemish on her record. Based off previous results this season,
she was a clear favourite for a medal and she managed to come in clutch at the
biggest of moments.
This also happened to be Canada’s first medal at these
Games, making this a big moment not just for her but for the whole country. Maltais,
who has gone to five Olympics and competed in both short track and long track,
had previously won Olympic medals but only in the team events. This was her
first individual medal and I imagine it will hold a special place in her heart
as one of the crown achievements of a lengthy and successful athletic career.
Noticeably absent from the podium was Joy Beune, who
finished 4
th
. This will be a huge disappointment for the Dutch
skater (as well as all the managers that drafted her, including Dad!). After a
shocking Olympic trials where she failed to qualify in either the 1500m or
5000m, this 3000m race was her only individual distance at the Games. She had
won two of the three 3000m World Cup races that she competed in and took home
the silver in the last one, so her points per race were actually the highest of
any skater but she took WC4 off, dropping her from first to third in the world
rankings. She definitely had eyes on the gold and I think a lot of us thought
it would come down to a battle between Beune and Wiklund for that top spot. To
see Beune miss the podium entirely is a shocking twist but just one more example
of how special, different, and unexpected Olympic results can be.
The two other Dutch girls, Marijke Groenewoud and
Merel Conijn, finished 8
th
and 9
th
respectively. This was
likely a worse result than many of us expected and cost a bunch of managers
quite a few points. Conijn had even taken the World Cup circuit off to
fully taper and focus on the Olympics, but it seems that this didn’t work out the
way she dreamt it up in the 3000m.
Men’s 5000m
Next up on the schedule was the men’s 5000m. Sander
Eitrem was the overall favourite to win this one after setting a fresh world
record just weeks out from the start of the Olympics and also being the only
guy to medal at all four 5000m races on the World Cup circuit. He didn’t
disappoint, winning the gold by over 2.5 seconds with an impressive time of
6.03.95 (another track record).
One of the most interesting moments of the race was a
massive slip just a stride or two into the race for Eitrem—nearly enough to bring him
down. He thankfully stayed on his feat, but it would have been one hell of a
storyline if he had fallen right off the line and was playing from behind. A quick
fall to his knees and a bounce back up may have cost him a second or two and it
would have been really interesting to see how this race played out, knowing now
the margin that he won by, if he had essentially started the race with a 2-3
second handicap. Would he have been able to refocus and make one of the most
incredible comeback gold medal performances ever, or would he have succumbed to
the nervousness of the moment and choked despite clearly being in top shape?
For better or worse, we’ll never know.
Moving on, Metodej Jilek, the young Czech superstar,
finished with the silver medal. He seemed disappointed after the race, which
was disheartening to see because an Olympic silver medal at the age of 19 and
only about four years after he started skating long track is a remarkable achievement.
By far the biggest surprise came in the bronze
position which fell to Ricardo Lorello of Italy. He only skated a single A Division
race all season and finished 9
th
in that one. His world ranking in
the distance is 16
th
. Yet he pieced together and amazing race early
on in pair three and managed to hold off a long list of very talented skaters that
came way after him: Timothy Loubineaud, Casey Dawson, Chris Huizinga, Ted-Jan
Bloemen, and (most importantly) his teammate Davide Ghiotto.
Ghiotto actually had him beat until the very last lap
but let the bronze medal slip out of his grasp at the last possible moment. After
years of dominance in the long distances, and after seeing how fire up and
tapered Lollobrigida was, I think a lot of people expected Ghiotto to show up
with something big in this one. He ended up in 4
th
and instead started
his Olympic campaign empty handed.
Also noticeably absent from the podium was the Dutch.
The 5000m is a distance they have long been dominant at, but since Roest disappeared
they have really faded from the top of the rankings. This is something I’ve
written about on the blog, but it feels even more real now that it’s happening
at the Olympics in front of the rest of the world. This Olympics marked the
first time since 1984 that the Dutch missed the 5000m podium and I’m sure they’ll
soon have a lot of suits in a room trying to figure out why this is the case.
Women’s 1000m
We had labelled this event before as the most
predictable one and it played out mostly as we had expected. The thought was
that the podium would be some variation of Jutta Leerdam, Miho Takagi, and
Femke Kok, but the medal order was to be determined. For the record, I had
predicted those three would finish in the order I just listed them.
Jutta Leerdam was the ultimate winner, but not before
Femke Kok threw down a bonkers fast time (1.12.59) that had many people in the
oval thinking that it would be enough to win the whole damn thing. Leerdam’s first
lap of 6.1 ended up being a difference maker as she cruised to victory despite
a slower opener and comparable last lap to Kok. Only three girls had laps under
27 seconds and no one else managed to go under 26.5, so a 26.1 is fucking
lightening quick compared to the rest of the field.
Rounding out the podium was Miho Takagi, a full 1.36
seconds back from silver. Though, it’s not like anyone was pressuring her much
from the other side as the 4
th
place finisher Brittany Bowe was
still another 0.6 seconds away, followed by a much smaller 0.18 gap to Beatrice
Lamarche in 5
th
place, Canada’s top finish in this event in quite a
long time. Though this isn’t news to anyone, the top girls in this field are
clearly in a league of their own.
Men’s 1000m
Despite the first two events having some unexpected
results, this was the first event to bring true drama. The first ten pairs were
about what we would have expected—overall fast times, some amazing results from
skaters like Laurent Dubreuil and Daniele Di Stefano, but at this point it was
Dutch veteran Kjeld Nuis with the lead and all the true podium favourites were
yet to race. Things were shaping up for a pretty straightforward, until shit
suddenly hit the fan in pair 11.
The pairing was Joep Wennemars and Lian Zhiwen.
Wennemars, who won World Champs in this event last year, had an incredible 600m
split that put him only behind Laurent at that point in the racing, but Wennemars
is a much stronger finisher and it looked like he was cruising to a highly competitive time. But then on the final crossing straight, Lian
moved into the outer lane and Wennemars ran into him a bit from behind and they
clipped skates. Wennemars missed 2-3 strides and then managed to make a pretty
impressive recovery to finish the race with the leading time, but the damage
was already done. With the talent that was to come, he needed to throw down
something truly fast and instead he had barely beat out fellow Dutchman Kjeld
Nuis.
In the very next pair, Ning Zhongyan managed to best Wennemars’s
time and move into the top spot. Two pairs later, Jenning de Boo and Jordan
Stolz faced off head to head. Though de Boo had a lead over Stolz by an incredible .37
seconds at the 600m mark, Stolz pulled of a miracle last lap and took the pair, with
de Boo sliding into second position and Ning now in third. In the final pair,
Damian Zurek narrowly missed the podium and landed in 4
th
place,
leaving the podium of Stolz, de Boo, and Ning intact at the end.
Wennemars did have a chance to prove himself on the ice one last time in a reskate, but reskates are notorious for never presenting competitive results. He had to race it within 30 minutes due to the ISU rules on reskates, likely built around the time an event takes and the important of fitting it all into a pre-sold broadcasting TV slot. Wennemars underwhelmed in the reskate, which is no fault of his own, but the added drama of an Olympic reskate just added to the intensity of the moment.
Dutch media immediately picked up on the fact that it
was a Chinese skater that impeded Joep Wennemars and that it was a Chinese
skater that ultimately beat Wennemars by 0.24 seconds for the bronze medal.
Surely, they said, these two are linked? Surely, they said, the Chinese skater sabotaged
the defending World Champion to give his fellow Chinese teammate a better chance
at a medal? Could they have made it any more obvious?
It’s impossible to put an objective number on a slip,
so we’ll never know if Wennemars would have won the bronze without the crossing
incident, but 0.24 seconds is entirely within the realm of what the slip likely
cost him. I think anyone saying it easily cost him over half a second is a bit
out for lunch, solely because his recovery and refocus was so impressive. On
the flip side, anyone who thinks he definitely didn’t have a chance is also likely
being a bit of hater.
Thomas Krol, always a sober speaker, told the media that
he thought the Chinese skater made a mistake (and deserved the DQ) but that the
move likely wasn’t intentional. This is definitely the most likely scenario.
But it isn’t the most exciting, so on Dad’s Column we are strongly of the belief
that Lian intentional messed up Wennemars’s race so that Ning, who hadn’t raced
yet, would have an easier time winning a medal for China. The fact that bronze didn’t
fall to Nuis or Zurek or Liiv or any of the other quality skaters isn’t just
the way the chips fell—it’s the exact way the Chinese Skating Federation envisioned
this event playing out.
Crazy enough, this Chinese conspiracy wasn’t even the
only cool storyline happening in the men’s 1000m. It was reported that Jenning
de Boo lost his skates the afternoon of the race. It turns out that he left them
on the bus… the same bus that shuttles between Milan and the other satellite Olympic
venues
up to 4 hours away.
Lucky for him, his coaches and equipment staff
were able to quickly track the skates down, but could you imagine how different
this event would have looked if de Boo had to scratch for such an insane
reason?
Another cool thing to note is that Jordan Stolz
allegedly saved the blades that he skated his 1000m world record on for this Olympic
race. That world record was broken in January 2024. He literally took those
blades, put them aside for the next big moment, and then pulled them out two
years later for his incredible Olympic 1000m comeback win. What a stud.
That’s all I’ve got for today. The women’s 5000m, men’s
10,000m, as well as both 500m and team pursuit races have already happened, so
those will be next up for the column. I’m also just about done with my writing
retreat in San Marino with Stepdad, who clearly did no writing himself (which
is pretty awesome, cause then we don’t have to read whatever bullshit he pushes
out). But this unfortunately means I’m not super likely to get another column
out in a very timely manner, so apologies in advance for the delays pushing out
anything about the last events.
The next event to be raced at the Olympics is the men’s
1500m on Feb 19, followed by the women’s 1500m on Feb 20. We then wrap up
Olympic speed skating on Feb 22 with all of the mass start races. Hopefully
Canada can end the Games on a high note. Enjoy watching the last few days of events!
Cheers,
Dad