Nagano -- The home team strikes first...

The World Cup season picked up the pace in more ways than one in the 1998 Winter Olympic venue, where a native daughter pulled off one of the most stunning upsets in the sport's recent history. The weekend also marked the endgame for one of speed skating's old guard, whose 13-year long track career was anything but unlucky.

Nagano, Japan's Olympic Memorial Arena, the M-Wave, was the first stop of a two-city Asian roadtrip for skaters of the 500 and 1000 meter persuasion. As always, ladies went first with their opening day 500m, where Canadian Catriona Lemay Doan had lost just two world cup 500m's in the past two years, while winning 16 others since January 27, 2001. But, an unheralded, unknown Japanese woman picked one whale of a day to jump-start her first foray into the big-time.

Shihomi Shinya, a 23-year old whose best international performance in speedskating's shortest distance was a ninth place last December in the pre-Olympic world cup at the Utah Olympic Oval, shocked Lemay Doan and the rest of the field with her first-ever victory, by 1/100th of a second. Shinya was fourth in the Japan Single Distance Championships 500m (third last year) and was fifth on last year's national sprint championships. Lemay Doan had to settle for the runner-up spot, and skated on a strained back which had given her fits for the past month. Manli Wang of China copped the bronze, while four-time world sprints champion Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt of Germany was fourth and another Japanese, Sayuri Osuga rounded out the top 5.

The best American finish was Becky Sundstrom's 14th place, followed by Chris Witty's 19th and Elli Ochowicz's 27th out of 34 total competitors. The question then became, would this be Shinya's one and only moment in the sun? She, her fellow skaters and the fans would not have too long to wait to find out.

One skater eager to erase some epically bad memories of last season, Jeremy Wotherspoon of Canada, took a baby step in doing just that with his sweep of the 500m races this weekend. On Saturday, he withheld the challenges of veterans and relative newcomers alike, as long-time rival Hiroyasu Shimizu, runner-up to the now-on-hiatus Casey Fitzrandolph in last February's Winter Olympic 500m, was second, followed by Joji Kato in third, Jae-Bong Choi of Korea in fourth, and 'Spoon's teammate Mike Ireland in fifth.

On Sunday, Wotherspoon triumphed over Shimizu again, with the Netherlands' Gerard van Velde, the Olympic champion on the 1000 coming in third. Another Japanese newcomer, Tomonori Kawata was fourth, and Dutchman Jan Bos and Kato tied for fifth.

In the wake of Fitzrandolph's absence, the mantle of unofficial team standardbearer would fall to Kip Carpenter, the 500m Olympic bronze medalist to pick up the slack. The results were not promising; Carpenter was 14th on Saturday's 500m, 11th on Sunday's race. He fared better, though, than Nick Pearson, Joe Cheek, the Olympic 1000m bronze medalist, and Lucas Mills, who were 21st and a tie for 25th, respectively on Saturday.

The following day, Cheek was 15th, Pearson 16th, and Mills tied for 26th. Newcomer Tucker Fredericks was next to last out of 34 skaters Saturday, third from last on Sunday.

The Saturday women's 1000m was an interesting affair. Along with Shinya, there would be the inaugural season's race of the defending Olympic kilometer champion, Chris Witty. Shinya had an even worse pair number -- sixth out of 17, where the big guns skate last, and have the advantage of knowing exactly what they need to do to win.

Garbrecht-Enfeldt, Aki Tonoike of Japan and Olympic silver medalist Sabine Volker of Germany did exactly that... with Shinya just 11/100ths of a second off the podium in fourth, and yet another German, Pamela Zollner, in fifth.

In what could be considered a minor surprise, Sundstrom was .09 better than Witty (7th and 8th, respectively). Ochowicz, though, finished 23rd out of 33 skaters.

The Dutch men stopped the home country good vibes, at least temporarily as they went 1-3-5 in the Saturday 1,000m; Erben Wennemars, Bos and van Velde in that order. Pearson aced his first-ever World Cup medal, a silver, while Wotherspoon was fourth. Carpenter was seventh, Cheek 11th, while Fredericks and Mills were 32nd and 33rd out of 34.

Sunday didn't offer a reversal of misfortune for Lemay Doan, who nearly fell in her 500m pairing and finished out of the top 3 for the first time since March 2000m. Japanese skaters took four of the first seven places, including the winner, Osuga. Garbrecht-Enfeldt was second, Wang, giving her Chinese teammates hope for next weekend's first-ever world cup races on its mainland, third, followed by Lemay Doan and Shinya. Sundstrom continued her streak of finishing higher than Witty, being the top American in 17th place by .09 of a second. Ochowicz was 27th.

In the women's 1,000m, Garbrecht-Enfeldt, now 35, continued to reach into her fountain of youth and pulled out another win, and Witty rose to the occasion and captured silver. Lemay Doan won the bronze, and Shinya accomplished a grand salami by finishing in the top five of every race this weekend (fourth), followed by Osuga. (She has now established herself as one of the outside chances to make serious noise at the world sprint championships in five weeks at Calgary.) Sundstrom was eighth and Ochowicz tied for 21st; the only other Americans in the field.

The Dutch were even better on Sunday's closing race, the 1,000m, as Bos and van Velde went 1-2, with Pearson netting the bronze. Wennemars and Wotherspoon rounded out that top five. Cheek and Carpenter switched spots as the second-fastest Yank (8th vs. 11th). Fredericks was 31st and Mills fell and did not finish the race.

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All of the distance racies look to be shpaing up to be crackling good chases.

Here are the top five for each of the four distances' points standings for your perusal.

Men's 500m (10 races remaining, same as the women's 500)

1. Wotherspoon, 200 2. Shimizu, 160 3. Kato, 120 4. Kawata, 100 5. Bos, 95 (with van Velde just a single point behind)

Men's 1,000m (7 kilometers still to go; ditto the women's 1000)

1. Bos, 170 2. Wennemars, 160 3. Pearson, 150 4. van Velde, 130 5. Wotherspoon, 110

Women's 500m

1. (tie) Osuga and Shinya, 150 (tie) Garbrecht-Enfeldt, Lemay Doan and Wang, 140

Women's 1,000m

1. Garbrecht-Enfeldt, 200 2. Shinya, 120 3. Witty, 116 4. (tie) Lemay Doan and Volker, 115

The next sprint World Cup will be, as mentioned, next weekend in Harbin, China, where this past weekend, the Asian Regional Qualification for the 2003 World All-round Championships were held. Unfortunately, the results of that event did not make deadline and will be passed along next week. This is an important meet, since it will determine that continent's representatives for the Gothenburg, Sweden competition in February. Five men and four women from this competition will comprise Asia's representatives.

The European Championships in Heerenveen, Netherlands January 3-5 will double as that neck of the woods' world all-round qualification (12 men and 14 women qualify), while the North Americans bring up the rear on January 25-26 in Kearns, Utah (where seven men and six women make the final cut for Gothenburg).

After Harbin, the World Cup circuit goes dark until January 11 (with a sprint event at the Utah Olympic Oval), as countries hold their respective national all-round and sprint championships in the interim.

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Susan Margaret Auch called it a career on Monday at her home away from home, Calgary's Olympic Oval.

She holds a special place in this writer's memory for so many good reasons, not the least of which was her love of the sport of speed skating.

Her career has spanned nearly two decades and she was an Olympian for a baker's dozen of them. More importantly, her impact on the sport may be felt on Canadian skating long after she's gone, with the up and comers who have been inspired by her to reach for the ring.

Moreso, for giving the grand dame of her sport all she could handle in a memorable 1994-95 season, and for being one of just three women currently vertical who skated a 500 meters in less than 39 seconds, WITHOUT clapskates.

The native of Winnipeg in Canada's Manitoba province began her career as part of her native country's winter games in 1988 in the, then, demonstration sport of short track speedskating, where she would be on its bronze-medal 3000m relay.

Soon after, she graduated to long-track, and proceeded to win seven Canadian sprint championships, including a run of six in a row from 1990-95, before Catriona Lemay Doan supplanted her as the top gun.

She was sixth in her first long track Olympic race, the 500m, and 17th in the 1,000m in Albertville, France in 1992.

In early 1994, she introduced herself as Bonnie Blair's principal rival by roaring to a silver in the 500m at the Lillehammer Olympic Winter Games, as well as one of the two World Sprint Championships 500m races two weeks prior.

But it was the 1994-95 season where she solidified her standing as one of the great sprinters of her time.

In that fateful season, Auch gave as good as she got and went toe-to-toe with Blair, winning three World Cup 500m races, where Blair had lost but one the year before.

She was part of the historic pairing on February 12, 1995 in Calgary, when both of them broke on through to the other side of 39 seconds -- Blair 38.69, Auch 38.94, and this was two years before klapskates.

Then they went stride for stride in their final meeting on March 17, 1995 at the annual Olympic Oval Finale in Calgary, the night before Blair's retirement, and only .01 of a second separated them.

A knee injury kept her sidelined for most of the 1995-96 campaign, and by then, Lemay Doan had emerged as the chief beneficiary of the klapskate technology and the premier maple leaf women's speedskater, discipline irrelevant.

Auch was never the same after that, unfortunately, not quite reaching the heights of '94-'95. Save for the Nagano Olympics of 1998, when she reached into the past and took poet Dylan Thomas' words to heart; "Do not go gentle into that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light." She gave Lemay Doan, her countrywoman, her rival, all she could handle and successfully defended her Lillehammer silver medal.

She retired in 1999, but decided to give it one last go in 2000, to try and squeeze one more Olympics out of her. She got to the big dance again, but like so many athletes in sports of ice and not, the mind was willing, but the body could not do what she asked of it.

Auch was 21st in the Salt Lake City 500m, and in her final Olympic race, 27th on the 1000m.

Five Olympics. For summer athletes, that's more common than you would think. But not for winter ones.

Yet for Auch, in the end, it wasn't about the medals, or the results. She went on because her love of the sport was that great, that enduring, that it made her happy.

Now 36, she will call it a career as the sprinter emeritus of her country's speed skating program, and with Lemay Doan rumored to join her at the end of this season, the torch will have officially been passed to a new generation of women -- to Cindy Klassen, Clara Hughes, Shannon Rempel, Brittany Schussler, among others.

Veterans and juniors alike, all watched with a keen eye at the exploits of one Susan Margaret Auch, who is now a part of the rich past of the sport of speed skating, and whose legacy might just be cited as the mentor, role model or inspiration in the generations to come.