2001 -- A year like no other

We've come to the end of the first year of the third millennium, and not a moment too soon.

Speedskating had its share of roof-raising stories in 2001, so since it's that time of year for lists, why not join in with the top 5 stories in the sport which span actually two seasons but one calendar year.

#5: Dynasties 2001 saw the continuation of dynasties; the Germans won the women's all around world championship for the seventh straight year and 19 out of the last 20 (factoring in when the Germanys were split into east and west); the Dutch likewise posted their seventh consecutive men's all around title and 12th since 1982. Monique Garbrecht created a personal dynasty of her own, winning her third consecutive world sprints championship after taking a two-year absence from the sport in 1995, and Canada, which hadn't won a men's sprint world crown since 1984 have now won the last three.

#4: Calgary vs. Kearns The supreme venue for left turns on ice since it opened in 1988 was the Olympic Oval on the University of Calgary campus. Until the second weekend in March, when the Oquirrh Park Oval (renamed the Utah Olympic Oval last year and will be so until the end of the Winter Olympics) opened for business with its first major event, the World Single Distance Championships on March 9. Before that fateful weekend, Calgary had eight of the 10 existing International Skating Union world records in individual speedskating races. When the sun rose on the morning of March 12, it had lost four of them (men's and women's 500 and 1,000). Our northern neighbors got a measure of revenge on December 9, when the women's 500m world record was broken in Calgary, so they have a 5-4-1 lead on Kearns (the other world record not in either oval is the men's 10,000 in Heerenveen, Netherlands). The UOO will have 10 excellent chances in about six weeks to reclaim the moniker of the planet's fastest speedskating facility. Whether it will or not depends on if the records above 1,500 meters will fall as easily as the sprint races did.

#3: The road trip that wasn't As with every sport, every facet of our way of life, the September 11 attacks on our country, on the civilized world as a whole by radical Islamics loyal to terrorist Osama Bin Laden affected speedskating as well. The short track world cup season began 10 days after the attacks in New York and Washington in Asia, with stops in Nobeyama, Japan and Changchun, China. With two notable exceptions, every country's short track team made those world cups -- except the United States and Canada. The decision was made to keep both countries' short track teams home, citing security reasons. It was a decision made unequivocally -- but a short-sighted one for two reasons. First, the boycott of the Asian world cups meant the Americans and Canadians would be put square behind the eight-ball in terms of how tough or how smooth a ride they would have at Salt Lake City in February, since the pairings are predicated to a certain extent on World Cup ranking. The more important reason, is that they changed the way they do business out of fear, which is exactly what the practitioners of terrorism crave. To show weakness, to show fear, the willingness to depart from normalcy is a victory for the agents of evil. And then we all lose.

#2: The shape of things to come? The American long-track Olympic team left Nagano, Japan gold-medal-less for only the second time since the Grenoble Winter Games of 1968. They had been blow-torched by the Dutch, 11 medals to two, with Chris Witty being the only skater to bring back little round souvenirs of her trip to Asia's first Winter Games since 1972. But where there was so little to cheer about then has radically changed for the better in the course of just a quarter-year. The home side now has potentially five legitimate contenders for the podium -- Witty, even though she has struggled mightily as the year came to a close, Derek Parra, Jennifer Rodriguez, Casey Fitzrandolph and Joe Cheek. Be it in world cup races (where Fitzrandolph has 5 medals, and Rodriguez and Parra with wins, the latter on the 1,500, the first metric mile win by an American in three years and by an American male skater in nearly 12 years) or at the recent Olympic Trials (where Cheek broke Fitzrandolph's national records on the 500 and 1,000 and Rodriguez broke a NR of her own), there is genuine promise that there will not be such a rout by the time February 24, 2002 rolls around. And even if their home base, the Utah Olympic Oval looks more like a warehouse than a Vikingskipet or M-Wave (the magnificent venues of the 1994 and 1998 speedskating Olympic competitions in Lillehammer, Norway and Nagano, no one will be thinking an iota about aesthetics if the Americans give the Dutch, Canadians and Germans a run for their klapskates.

#1: Claudia, meet Roger Breaking of minute barriers, be it in speedskating or swimming or athletics is always special, but there is a certain romanticism with the breaking of a four-minute barrier. Roger Bannister was the most famous shatterer of such a barrier in athletics with the first sub-four minute mile. Leo Visser of the Netherlands was the first speedskater to do likewise in a 3,000 meter race. But no woman had come close to that until March 2 in Calgary, when Claudia Pechstein of Germany was the first of her gender to not only breach 4 minutes in a three kilometer race, she smashed it down to 3:59.27 in the speedskating race of the year. It was her countrywoman, Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann who had flirted all 2000-01 season with going under four minutes first. But two pairs after Pechstein skated that day, Gunda's finishing kick was not there, and Pechstein will become the answer to a trivia question.

Russia held its Olympic selection races in Berlin on Christmas Eve weekend. Svetlana Zhurova (500, 1,000), Svetlana Kajkan (second on 500), Varvara Barysjeva (women's 1,500), Vadim Sajutin (men's 5,000), Dimitri Dorofejev (men's 500 and 1,000), Dimitri Lobkov and Sergei Klevchenja (second on 1,000) qualified for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Thirteen other skaters are in contention for the remaining spots based on performances at the European Championships in Erfurt, Germany on January 4-6, the Heerenveen World Cup the following weekend, and the World Sprint Championships in Hamar, Norway the weekend after that.

The Japanese selected their Olympic team this past week at the site of the last Winter Olympics, Nagano's M-Wave oval with their national single distance championships, and another titleholder will defend his 1998 Olympic crown.

Hiroyasu Shimizu, still in the throes of trying to recover from a back injury qualified for just one distance this time, the 500, and will not be a part of the Japanese team for the world sprint championships for the first time in over a half-dozen years in Hamar, Norway.

Toyoki Takeda, the top Japanese men's sprinter, and Manabu Horii will skate both the 500 and 1,000. Kuniomi Haneishi will join Shimizu and the other two on the former distance, while Yusuke Imai and Hiroyuke Noake, mainly metric mile specialists, will partake on the kilometer as well as their pet distance, the 1,500. Three men qualified for the 5,000 -- Keiji Shirahata, perennial contender for world all around championship medals, Toshihiko Itokawa, and world junior record holder Hiroki Hirako.

On the women's side, Sayuri Osuga and Eriko Sanmiya, third and seventh in the world cup 500m points standings, will join Tomomi Okazaki, the bronze medallist in Nagano four years ago, and Yukari Watanabe on that distance. Maki Tabata, currently fourth on the 1,500 and third on the 3,000/5,000 points standings, will be the only Japanese speedskater to qualify for three events (1,000, 1,500, and 3,000). Probably a fourth as well, since she is one of the podium favorites on the 3,000, which will allow her the option of trying for the 5,000. 1998 World Junior champion Aki Tonoike made the team in two races (1,000 and 1,500), while four others round out the team in one distance apiece; Yuri Obara and Yayoi Nagoaka (1,500), plus Eriko Seo and Nami Nemoto (3,000).

Canada's Olympic speedskating team on the sprint distances was finalized this weekend when the last chance for selection to the national team to go to Kearns in February occurred at a Canada Cup event in Calgary's Olympic Oval.

Catriona Lemay Doan, who has said Salt Lake City will be her final Olympic Winter Games, will defend her 1998 championship on the 500 and skate the 1,000 as well. Susan Auch qualified for her fifth and final Olympics on both distances, and will be joined on the kilometer by Cindy Klassen. On the men's side, the skaters who will represent the maple leaf on the 500 will be Jeremy Wotherspoon, Mike Ireland, Patrick Bouchard and Eric Brisson. On the 1,000, the first three aforementioned names will skate that as well, with Kevin Marshall joining them.

Canada's all around Olympic team (1,500 meters on up) will be decided on the weekend of the January 11-13 Heerenveen, Netherlands world cup, the final world cup competition before the Games.

In the Netherlands Thursday, Gianne Romme, the world cup points leader on the 5,000, the world record holder and defending Olympic champion, said in the interests of team unity, he would not go to court to try to secure a spot on that distance. Romme said even though he thought he had a good case, he declined to pursue the matter since he said it would have created "far too much unrest" on the dutch team and that's the last thing they need.

The U.S. short track speedskating trials played out in Kearns, Utah a week and change ago. For as long as slightly less time than forever, short track has had a label hung upon it; specifically, "roller derby on ice."

When the smoke cleared, one man defined the trials by winning every race he participated in except one, but the one he lost was awash in controversy.

Apolo Ohno and Amy Peterson reigned as men's and women's winners of the Trials. Peterson, Erin Porter and Caroline Hallisey qualified for two individual races apiece and the women's 3,000m relay while Allison Baver, Julie Goskowicz and Mary Grigak exclusively qualified for the relay.

Ohno and Rusty Smith qualified for all three individual races as well as the men's 5,000m relay. Joining them will be Dan Weinstein, J.P. Kepka, Shani Davis (more on him later) and Ron Biondo on the relay. Biondo will be the alternate, able to skate any race Ohno or Smith do not skate due to illness or injury in February.

The trials were held over two weekends at the Utah Olympic Oval in which unfortunately, that roller derby on ice moniker lived up to its name, especially on the women's side, with two horrific crashes, one on each weekend which caused one skater to be stretchered out of the facility, and the other, on the final day of the trials December 22. Both wound up OK, fortunately, but those accidents spoke to the distressing nature of a sport when pack-style starts are used (as in four or five competitors at the start line, all trying to be the first one to make it to the first corner, well, first. The women's competition in particular turned out to be little more than a lottery and those who survived it can say they made it to heck and back.

On the final day of the trials, a men's 1000m race would be contested. Shani Davis was vying to be the first African-American speedskater to qualify for an Olympic team (long or short track). He had been in eighth place overall going into the final, and only the top six qualified. So the bottom line was he had to win the race outright or not go to the games at all. Considering Ohno hadn't lost a single race at the trials before 12/23, including where he set a new world record on the 1,500 going into this final day's race, it seemed a foregone conclusion Davis was asked to do the impossible. He was the national record holder on the 1,000, but even he didn't make a "A" final in the entire trials until this race. Davis's highest finish in any race at Kearns was a 5th place showing in a nine-lap time trial.

What happened next is open to conjecture. Davis won the race, jumping from eighth in the overall ranking to sixth, the last possible spot for a place on the 5,000m Olympic relay team. So...

Either Davis just caught Ohno on a bad day, or Ohno, who is best friends with Davis off the ice, let him win; thus, making the Olympic team at the expense of the skater who was in sixth place beforehand, Tom O'Hare. Ohno wound up third. And a scene, which should have been couched in happiness that the team had been selected, turned awfully ugly awfully fast.

Ohno had to defend himself to reporters questioning whether he tanked the race on purpose. No one could find out what O'Hare thought, as he stormed out of the UOO after the race was over, his Olympic dream crushed, without talking to reporters. And Davis was being questioned as to how he felt if it turned out that the only reason he's on the national Olympic team is due to another's generosity and not his own ability. A real mess.

What is most encouraging and welcome is that US Speedskating president Fred Benjamin has hired a special counsel to investigate the circumstances surrounding the race. The investigation will run until January 11 or 12th, at which time the counsel will present his finding of facts to the executive board of USS and a decision will be rendered in very short order (it has to be). One guesses they can either decide the final result of the race stands, order a skate-off between the participants of the final, or find impropriety and declare the result of the race void.

At any rate, a sport which has seen the likes of Cathy Turner in the early '90s, a rash of injuries not limited to Americans and which seems to feed on danger at literally every corner, didn't need something like this to go into an Olympic Games with.

The U.S. Olympic Committee holds sway over the televising of its quadrennial trials to pick athletes for its summer and winter Olympic teams. Including speedskating's both disciplines, long track and short track. Sometimes, their decisions defy logic. Like this year's trials, for instance.

The USOC decided to televise live coverage of the speedskating trials this year, a wise move, considering the contenders which have popped up in both sports this season like flowers in a desert. Great news for speedskating fans; would they be on NBC, the home of the 2002 Olympics?

In a manner of speaking, yes. And very loosely.

The trials were broadcast live on something called HDNet, which had been NBC's clearing house station for live trials coverage. Never heard of it? You're not alone.

HDNet can, first, only be found on the DirecTV satellite network. Second, if you have a regular television which carries DirecTV, you can forget about seeing this channel number on your satellite cable box. And finally, the only way to get HDNet is with a high definition TV in your household, PLUS a HDTV-capable receiver to boot. That reduces the potential viewing audience by an astronomical number.

Unfortunately, U.S. Speedskating, like all sports not named figure skating, is at the mercy of the USOC in terms of TV coverage. NBC, however, chose not to intervene and broadcast the trials on a Saturday or Sunday a couple of weekends from now. Fortunately, there is a somewhat happy ending to the story. The Outdoor Life basic cable network, will, as they did for the Games in Nagano, televise the long and short track trials, along with Trials of every sport which had them not named figure skating, throughout January on its network.

But the question remains for the Olympics themselves; will NBC rely on this obscure satellite channel on DirecTV to broadcast the only live speedskating during February, save for the events Chris Witty will skate? The jury is still out on that one. We still don't know NBC's schedule of the Games or which sports will be on which of their triumvirate of channels (NBC itself, MSNBC or CNBC).

Next week's column; more opinion than result-oriented stuff, and let's have some letters from you fans, or non-fans for a change. For a first time, even.