SPEED SKATING: A Tale Of Two Sprinters

He received his pair of clapskates around Christmas 1997. Since then, a medal, any medal in a world cup or world championship 1000m race has eluded him. On December 16, in yet another sign that American sprint speedskating is slowly getting back in shape, he finally made it onto the podium.

Casey Fitzrandolph won his first world cup 1000m medal, a bronze, since January 12, 1997, when he and the rest of the sprinters took to the ice this past weekend in Nagano, Japan, the latest stop on the Essent ISU World Cup tour. It was the American team’s third consecutive weekend in which a skater won a medal. He was just 2/100ths of a second out of bronze on the men’s 500 on the 16th, in 5th overall.

The natives excelled in the 1998 Winter Olympic speedskating venue, the M-Wave. On the 16th, Hiroyasu Shimizu and Eriko Sanmiya sent the fans home happy with victories on the men’s 500 and women’s 1000, respectively. If that wasn’t enough, Japan took silver and bronze on the women’s 500 (Sanmiya and 1998 World Junior Champion Aki Tonoike, respectively) and Toyoki Takeda was the surprise silver medalist on the men’s 1000 behind Adne Sondral of Norway, who should like this place a lot - he won the 1998 men’s 1500m Olympic title here.

But this is a tale of two sprinters, for the other is a Canadian woman who wanted nothing more than to see the clapskates banned when she received her pair in mid-1997. That opinion changed in a hurry when later that year she cut a swath through the 500m world record book (and championship events) like few skaters before her. She failed to win a World Cup race in the 1999-2000 season; this time, she's skating with the intent on winning every 500m that's out there.

Catriona Lemay Doan returned to the scene of her 500m Olympic gold and continued her winning streak in Asia. The current world record holder on the distance (37.55 seconds) swept the table in Nagano, winning both 500m races. Lemay Doan, who turns 30 on December 23 remained perfect in her signature distance, winning the season’s first four races with five to go.

The hosts were especially impressive on the 17th. Japan won half of the 12 available medals, including Shimizu finishing off his own sweep of the men’s 500 in track record fashion; two more podium finishes by Sanmiya (silver, 500; bronze, 1000) and Tonoike’s first career world cup win on the 1000m.

The Americans’ good fortune kind of ran dry on the 17th; the highest finish was Chris Witty’s 4th place on the 1000. The only other top 10 finish was Fitzrandolph’s 9th on the same distance.

The world cup season takes a breather as the next set of races aren’t until January 27-28, 2001 in Helsinki, Finland. From now until then, however, countries will have their allround and spring national championship races occurring. A big weekend will be on January 13-14, where the final pieces of the world championships allround puzzle will be filled in. On that weekend, North America and Europe hold their continental qualifications. The world championships for allround speedskating will be held in Budapest, Hungary on February 9-11.

For all the hand-wringing among speedskating fans about how the Netherlands is dominating speedskating to the exclusion of just about everyone else these days, perhaps the tide is slightly turning in favor of the rest of the field.

The Dutch sprinters, among them Jan Bos, 1998 World Sprint champion, Erben Wennemars, along with female standouts Andrea Nuyt and defending 1000 and 1500m Olympic champion Marianne Timmer have had sub-par results so far. Bos is just 9th on the 1000 and 10th on the 500m points standings and Wennemars is even farther down - 10th and 15th, respectively. Only Nuyt is ranked in the top 10 in both distances (a high of 6th on the 1000).

Bad for the Dutch, yes - good for those who may be a bit weary of seeing orange on the victory stand most of the time.

We are at the halfway point of the season, so now is as good a time as any to look at the world cup points standings on the men’s and women’s 500 and 1000. As you will see, there are tighter-than-tight races, and then there are the runaways.

Men’s 500 1. Hiroyasu Shimizu (JPN) 322 2. Jeremy Wotherspoon (CAN) 320 3. Mike Ireland (CAN) 260 4. Toyoki Takeda (CAN) 241 5. Janne Hanninen (FIN) 176 Best American - 12. Casey Fitzrandolph 114

Men’s 1000 1. Adne Sondral (NOR) 312 2. Ireland 254 3. Wotherspoon 230 4. Kyu-Hyuk Lee (KOR) 216 5. Takeda 202 Best American - 7th - Fitzrandolph 166

Women’s 500 1. Catriona Lemay Doan (CAN) 400 2. Eriko Sanmiya (JPN) 310 3. Monique Garbrecht (GER) 250 4. Svetlana Zhurova (RUS) 223 5. Sabine Volker (GER) 187 Best American - 11th, Chris Witty 111

Women’s 1000 1. Sanmiya 340 2. Garbrecht 320 3. Witty 290 4. Aki Tonoike (JPN) 230 5. Volker 210

With each race earning 100 points for first, 80 for second and so on, these disciplines won’t be decided, I suspect until the World Cup Final on March 2-4, 2001 in Calgary, Canada.

Have a happy holiday and I hope to see you here next time.