Hello managers,
Now that we’ve got the pre-season ranking bullshit
outta the way, it’s time to get back to reality. How important are the World
Cups this season? How do your skaters qualify for the Olympics or World
Championships? Which skaters are injured? And who is still a free agent? If you’re
not asking any of these questions, you should probably just stop reading this
post right now and save yourself the next five minutes.
Fantasy Speed Skating Season Points
Breakdown
Fantasy speed skating is mostly about numbers. Sometimes
vibes prevail, but more often than not it comes down to numbers. It’s important
to know where your skaters can earn points and how many they could earn. Since
not all competitions are created equal, it’s important to keep in mind that
different parts of the season carry different weights relative to each other.
Here at Dad’s Column, we like to use World Cup
Equivalents for some simple comparisons. One World Cup is equal to one World
Cup Equivalent (WCE). Since the Olympics has a 4x points multiplier, the
Olympics is worth four WCEs. The World Cup Classification ranking for each
skater is worth 2 WCE. World Sprints and World Allround Championships aren’t quite
as simple, but the rough math of four individual distances plus a 2x multiplier
on the final classification gives us 6 WCEs. I’ve laid this out in a table so
it’s easy to see.
What should quickly become obvious is how little the
World Cups actually matter relative to the big two events at the end of the season.
The actual World Cup season, including the points your skaters earn for their
end-of-season world rank, only adds up to 41.5%—not even half of the season’s
points! A poor performance at World Cups will likely ruin your chances of
winning this league, but a good World Cup performance doesn’t actually
guarantee you any success if your skaters don’t keep up the results at the
Olympics and World Champs.
This is something that all managers should keep in the
back of their mind, particularly when it comes to picking up free agents. Though
it might be enticing to snag an early over-achiever (it must be said that this
still pays off
sometimes
), managers who aren’t sure if many of their
skaters will be competing at the Olympics or Sprints/Allrounds should try to
exhibit some patience. Having a free agent pickup or two available late in the
season (when the BIG points are getting paid out) is often a good strategy to
add a real gamechanger to your roster.
Now, admittedly the numbers I’ve provided are
oversimplified. Pure 500m skaters get to race their distance twice a weekend at
most World Cups and only once at the Olympics. If they don’t go to World Sprints,
then 69% of the points that they can collect will be at the World Cups. For
distance skaters that skate both the long distances at the Olympics and go to
allrounds, the World Cups (including classification) goes down from 41.5% to
33.3% of their season. There’s obviously a lot more nuance than simple WCEs
suggest, but the important lesson here is to simply be aware of which parts of
the season carry the most value and which types of skaters are best set to earn
points at the most opportune times.
Earning Quota for the Olympics
Earning spots at the Olympics in 2022 was a bit of a
mess. The IOC/ISU had put together an odd way of qualifying spots that punished
countries with depth so that shitter countries could send their dogshit 500m or
Mass Start skaters to go and get last at the Olympics. Rio Yamada skated a
blistering 1:13.90 at a Fall World Cup 1000m, but failed to qualify a spot at
the Olympic because the ISU preferred to instead see Romania’s Mihaela Hogas get
beat by over 6 seconds in the Olympic 1000m event. After that tragedy, we knew
that the rules might be getting changed in time for 2026. To Dad’s delight, the
rules did indeed change.
Things are much simpler this time around. For each
distance, there is a specific number of quota spots that countries can earn
based on World Cup rankings after the first four World Cups. There are then a
couple of time quota spots that can be earned as well, also at the first 4
World Cups. Since WC1 and 2 are at altitude in Salt Lake City and Calgary, we
should expect the vast majority of time spots to be earned at these two World
Cups. The main exception to this would be the Women’s 5000m and Men’s 10,000m
which is scheduled for WC3, so we can expect all time spots for those two
distances to be earned there.
Each country can only earn a maximum of 3 spots per
distance (and only 2 per distance for the 5000m/10,000m and the MS). Reminder
that these spots are for countries, not skaters. So even if your skaters earn one
of those quota, they will likely still have to defend it at a national competition
if they come from a competitive speed skating country. There are also two
reserve spots in the three shorter distances that could get filled if the total
number of speed skaters at the Olympics is under 164, though it’s uncertain
exactly how that will play out.
Earning Quota for World Championships
Quota for World Championships are handed out two
different ways. The first priority: any top-16 finisher at World
Sprints/Allrounds two years ago automatically pre-qualifies their country a
quota at the upcoming 2026 World Champs. After those 16 spots are handed out,
spots 17-28 are then filled based on times skated at the first four World Cups.
For sprints, a country’s best 500m time is combined with their best 1000m time
for a combined samalogue number. Their second best 500m time is then combined
with their second best 1000m time. This is done up to three times, and then
those three samalogue numbers are then compared to other countries’ times and
the top 12 times earn spots at Worlds. For Allrounds, the same method is used
except they rely on a combination of 1500m and 3000m/5000m times.
This is actually slightly different than in the past.
Previously, the combined times had to be skated by the same skater. This hurt
countries like Japan who have incredibly deep teams and should easily qualify
three spots at World Sprints, but sometimes (like this year) have only one male
skater who is set to race both the 500m and 1000m at World Cups. In previous
years, this would have limited Japan to only being able to earn one spot at
Worlds. Under the new rule, it appears that the samalogue time can be a
combination of two skaters, which swings the pendulum way to the other side and
favours countries with specialists in every individual distance. Only time will
tell if this is a better or worse way to do it, but for now it’s what we’ll be
dealing with.
Injury Tracker
Patrick Roest
–
He may have been the most consistent male points-earner of the last decade, but
things have quickly gone south for this Joel Simpson lookalike. After suffering
from an infected brain at the start of last season, it seems he still hasn’t
made a full recovery. Though he didn’t get utterly embarrassed at trials this
time around, he was still nowhere close to making the first World Cups.
Kimi Goetz
–
This American superstar ended last season early due to surgery following the
Fall World Cups. I guess the thinking was that this would give her more time to
get back into form for the upcoming Olympic season. Well, it seems that more
time as needed as she got beat by a couple of American skaters you’ve almost
forsure never heard of and looks like she will be waiting a bit longer to make
her World Cup re-debut.
Tatsuya Shinhama –
This
Japanese beast got into a pretty rough car accident over the summer and had to
take some time off. It seems he’s healed and back to skating competitive times
again. If he’s still not fully in form and continues to improve throughout the
season, managers with Shinhama on their roster could be in for a great season.
Merel Conijn –
The
young Dutch long-distance skater will be missing the Fall World Cups despite
winning a gold medal at national championships just a few weeks ago. She may
not technically be injured, but Dad is diagnosing her as either
soft
or
lame
.
Suzanne Schulting –
After
missing out entirely on World Cup spots, this overrated Dutch celebrity might
be suffering from regret. Things were working out so well over in short track
and it turns out walking on to the long track team in the Netherlands isn’t quite
as easy as it may have first seemed. To make matters even worse, her boyfriend
is absolutely ripping so there’s a good chance they won’t be spending too much
time together over the next few months.
Arianna Fontana –
Another
legend from short track, this one is actually injured. A rough fall a few weeks
ago kept her off the ice during Italy’s preliminary Olympic long track trials, putting
her dream of an Olympic long track medal in jeopardy. What maybe wasn’t clear
to her before is that her Olympic long-track medal was always in jeopardy since
she’s just not that good of a long tracker.
Sofia Thorup-Prosvirnova –
Yet
another legend from short track is dealing with something serious this season
that will keep her off the Danish Olympic team this season. Her condition?
Not
being a real Dane.
It turns out the ISU will let you skate for a country of
which you aren’t a citizen at every event but one—the Olympics. This Russian-born
“Dane”-by-marriage will be left off the Danish Olympic speed skating team
despite being their only half-decent skater. Sucks to suck I guess.
Seitaro Ichinohe –
This
veteran of the Japanese middle/long-distance team has chosen to stay home from
World Cups this fall. Whether this decision was made due to health or injury concerns
is not yet clear.
Taiga Sasaki –
This
Sasaki, not to be confused with his brother Shomu, had an incredible Japanese trials,
ripping some very impressive times. Unfortunately, he will not be going to
World Cups this fall since he has a serious case of
being really fucking young.
Much better than when skaters get a bad case of
old
(RIP Claudia Pechstein
who failed to make a recovery after her last bout of
old
). For Taiga, it
looks like he’ll have to finish up his grade school years before he’s free of
his disease.
Just a side note on this last fella, I don’t want to
understate just how quick this kid is. He is a B2, meaning he probably still
wears diapers. He also got 2
nd
place in the 5000m at Japanese Senior
Trials, an incredible feat for a youngster. His time? 6:22,04 in friggin Nagano.
For context, the Dutch Junior 5000m National Record is 6:21.94 and most Dutch
skaters race in Heerenveen which is among the fastest ovals in the world when
it comes to the longer distances. This kid is faster than even fucking Sven
Kramer was as a junior. It’s only a matter of time before he’s a regular in
this league.
Free Agent Tracker
Realistically, none of you should seriously be considering
picking up a free agent this early in the season. But, then again, a lot of you
drafted some pretty replaceable (read: shit) skaters. If you’re looking to make
some improvements to your team, this list should be a good starting point.
Lee Seung-Hoon
–
This guy medals at every damn Olympics. 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022. Like
fucking clockwork. If there’s ever been a sure bet, this is it.
Cha Min-Kyu –
Maybe
it’s a Korean thing, but this guy also medals like clockwork at the Olympics. Back-to-back
silver medals in the 500m in 2018 and 2022 was impressive as hell, especially considering
how bad of a skater he was heading into the 2022 season. Now, he’s even worse.
But does he still have what it takes for the three-peat?
Bart Hoolwerf
–
This guy is a regular on the World Cup circuit and benefits from competing in a
distance in which the Dutch federation will still send him even if he gets beat
at trials. The only downside for picking this guy up is then you’ll be cheering
for a guy who cries when he wins, cries when he loses, and just seems to generally
be crying all the time.
Greta Myers
–
Her times have been impressive to start the season and she’s set to collect at
least some points in the mass start. She’s not someone I’d necessarily
recommend, especially as a 3
rd
round pick (@ Darius), but since she’s
been drafted in most pools I guess I’ll inform the masses that she’s only available
as a free agent in one final pool.
Beau Snellink
–
Despite winning a silver medal at Worlds last year, previously winning the
long-distance World Cup Classification, and qualifying for World Cups yet again
this year, one pool still managed to not draft Beau, leaving him as a free
agent.
Chung Jae-Won –
He’s
basically a younger Lee Seung-Hoon, making up for all those Olympics he was way
too young to attend by not being a legitimately old man. If you’re hoping to
draft a Korean mass start skater who isn’t a grandpa, this might be your guy.
He’s only free in one pool.
Sebas Diniz
–
Skating in the shadow of the giants of the Dutch team, this guy has actually
become pretty reliable for points. If you’re gonna snag him, maybe do it early.
His value will likely only drop as we progress through the season since he isn’t
very likely to skate at the Olympics or World Champs.
Yuma Murakami –
I’d
wait until we at least see how he stacks up against the competition at World
Cup 1, but if Murakami is truly on a bounce back year then this could be an
easy free agent choice for a lot of managers. He was only drafted once, so he’s
still a free agent in most pools.
Finally, don’t forget that racing begins this Friday
in Salt Lake City with World Cup 1. This means that
any roster changes
need to be submitted by 11:59 PM Mountain Time on Thursday
(which is
coming up very quickly). Ice is looking fast in Salt Lake City and with Olympic
quota spots up for grabs we should be in for some very exciting racing. Enjoy
the start of the season!
Cheers,
Dad