World Cup #2: Beginning of the end for the 10?

"A Tour de France without mountains."

Derek Parra, men's winner of the first-ever World Cup speedskating samalog tournament, minus the 10,000 meters.

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Another weekend, another piece of history rewritten at the expense of Germany -- on home ice.

Where a duo of women -- one a former hockey player, the other a cyclist -- who, if they continue on this pace, will make fans who are worried about the retirement of Catriona Lemay Doan not worry about whether another Canadian women might replace her.

Clara Hughes, one of just two women to win a medal in both a Winter and Summer Olympics, became the first non-German to win a 3,000 meter race in a World Cup format since December 15, 1996, Saturday afternoon, in the second leg of the World Cup season at Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann Halle in Erfurt, Germany. Her teammate, Cindy Klassen, would rise even higher as you'll soon discover.

The meet this weekend was a three-day affair, the first World Cup ever to have a samalog competition introduced, where skaters participated in a four-distance competition, ranked on the basis of cumulative times over the four-race format. Women skated, in order, 500m, 1,000, 3,000 and 1,500m races, as the men went 500m-3,000m-1,500m-5,000m.

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A brief explanation of a samalog event is in order. Every distance is treated like a 500 meter race. So if the distance is 1,000 meters, the points for that are determined by dividing the 1,000m time (in seconds) by 2. For a 3,000m race, the skater's time is divided by 6. For a 5,000m or 10000m race, the time is divided by 10 and 20, respectively. The lower your point total is, the better your chances are of finishing on top.

The men's 500m kicked things off, with Aleksandr Kibalko of Russia winning, with Derek Parra of the USA second.

North Americans, as is their wont, had their way with the rest of the field, as places 3-5 were Kevin Marshall of Canada, Chris Callis of the USA and another Canadian, Jason Parker.

The top Dutch threats in the competition didn't do so well; Jochem Uytdehaage, defending world all-round champion was 20th. Carl Verheijen, last year's 10,000m World Single Distance champion was 22nd, Gianni Romme was 30th and Bob deJong was 35th out of 46 skaters. Their chances to move up weren't that far away.

The women, likewise, had their 500m sprint afterward, and a mild upset was the order of the day; Klassen beat back American Jennifer Rodriguez, bronze medalist on the Olympic 1,000m, with Chihara Simionato of Italy having something to write home about with her third place finish.

In contrast to the men's opener, the main competition wasn't that far back; specifically, Olympic 3K and 5K champion Claudia Pechstein of Germany (6th) and Renate Groenewold of the Netherlands (9th).

The rarely-run men's 3,000m concluded Day 1, and the Dutch wasted little time from their foursome -- Verheijen got the duke, followed by Uytdehaage (runnerup), Romme (4th) and Ids Postma (5th).

Parra did well here, finishing sixth, which meant he retained his lead in the overall competition.

Kibalko faltered to 15th on the 3,000m, but since he had a sterling 500m, only dropped to second, 33/100ths of a second behind Parra.

The real shakeup was in the remainder of the top 5. Verheijen, Uytdehaage and Postma followed closely behind, with Callis hanging tough in sixth. Going into the metric mile Saturday, Parra's signature event, less than two seconds separated Parra from Callis.

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Saturday was ladies day, with the running of the 1,000 meters, and again, Klassen got the better of her North American rival, with Thomas and Pechstein, the latter not skating the 1000m that often, finishing third and fourth.

It was a damaging loss for J-Rod, as the margin of defeat was almost a full second, and since that is multiplied by two, Klassen had a whopper of a 3.78 second gap ahead of the second-place-overall American going into the 3,000m later in the day.

Thomas was third, 10.26 seconds back, while Pechstein was nestled in sixth, 15.54 seconds out, and 11.76 behind Rodriguez.

Shades of this year's World All-round Championships, where Pechstein overtook Rodriguez on the final distance and pushed her out of the medals? Time would tell.

Parra, as expected, cruised to victory in the 1,500m, with Russians Yevgeny Lalenkov (last weekend's 1,500m winner at Hamar, Norway), and Kibalko 2-3.

Going into the 5,000 meters Sunday, Parra's lead over Kibalko was 3.41 seconds, but of more importance, the ninth place finish of Postma and 16th for Uytdehaage pretty much killed either athlete's chances for a victory. Postma was 13.62 seconds in arrears (third overall), while the double Olympic champion of 5,000m and 10,000m in Salt Lake City was fifth, 14.22 seconds slower.

Both fared better than Verheijen, however, as he bombed on the 1,500m, (27th ) and dropped overall to seventh, almost 17 seconds behind.

So the competition's winner had seemingly already been decided, and who would finish behind Parra.

That set the stage for the women's 3,000m, with Hughes' monumental upset of Pechstein, a 1.2-plus second thrashing of the German, with Klassen third.

How big a deal was this? For the first time in nearly six years, a German woman did not win an all-round World Cup race, on top of a non-European winning a 3,000m race.

Any outside hope for an overall win by Rodriguez died a painful death, as she was fourth from last on the 3K and saw all but 1.04 seconds of her lead over Pechstein for silver evaporate.

Thomas hung in there; her prior two races making up for a 16th place on this particular one. She finished fourth.

Another German, Daniela Anschutz, climbed into the top five with her strong fourth place 3,000m finish.

But, clearly, going into the 1,500m Sunday, this was Klassen's title to lose.

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Sunday kicked off with the first of two final races, the men's 5,000m. Parra improved his lot last season on this distance, so with him skating in the seventh of 10 pairs, the Dutch would know what they would have to do to beat him. Parra's 6:34.21 nailed the door shut on any Dutch hopes at all. Postma tried, but finished in 6:35.69.

But, Orange Pride was semi-salvaged, as Verheijen, Bob DeJong and Uytdehaage swept the 5K race itself.

Parra added to his impressive recent resume with the overall victory, followed by Verheijen and Uytdehaage for the silver and bronze. Postma was fourth, and the surprising Callis was fifth.

Klassen and Co. closed the proceedings on the 1,500m, and served notice she will be right smack in the thick of things with yet another victory -- her third individual race win of the weekend -- with a spectacular surprise for second place -- Pechstein trounced Rodriguez outright by more than a second.

Former world all-round champ Anni Friesinger returned from a knee injury to participate in just this race -- and edged the American for that race's bronze. Pechstein finished the weekend in second place overall, .01 ahead of Rodriguez. Thomas was fourth, and Anschutz came in fifth.

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So how did it play in the birthplace of speedskating? A quick glance at De Volkskrant, a Dutch national newspaper of significance, got quotes from several of the participants. Some samples follow.

Kibalko: "The experiment is successful. On to the next test. We need new impulses. The time of perestrojka in speedskating has begun. I hope the 10.000 will be replaced by the 3000 in the allround tournaments."

Ard Schenk, four-time Olympic champion and three-time world allround champion from Holland: "The small samalog is much, much more exciting than the big one. the ISU is thinking about an allround competition, with two small samalogs and one big samalog (the traditional 500-5000-1500-10,000m for men and the 500-3000-1500-5000 for women).(but) we should not expect very big changes on the short term. The tradition of the allround tournament in its current form dates from 1893. We must take care of not killing the 10."

Verheijen: "The small samalog should be (in the) Olympics."

Uytdehaage: "The European Championship should be a big samalog, the World Championship a small one. The 10.000 is alive in Europe. But in countries like Korea, Japan and America, the field on the 3000 is much stronger."

Parra: "Ditching the 10 would be in my advantage. But the past deserves respect. An allround tournament without a 10.000 meter is like a Tour de France without mountains."

The Dutch are understandably ambiguous for nationalistic reasons, since it puts them at somewhat of a disadvantage. But Parra, despite being in the sport for less than a decade, has the right sentiment.

The ultimate test of an all-round skater's soul is the longest distances. To sacrifice that for a more TV-friendly format would be to mess with a century-plus tradition.

Next weekend, the first and only men's 10,000 of the season is on the horizon.

Until then...