SPEDSKATING: Without top or bottom; now, without peer...

Without any further ado, onto the recap of a memorable competition...

Saturday February 11, noon Budapest time;

The women’s 500 meters, as is traditional, kicks off the championship, which was not hampered by rain, but by high temperatures; the thermometer soared near 50 degrees and anyone that had the first inner was at a serious disadvantage. Combine that with a steady wind and it was an adventurous (being nice) way to begin the most important International Skating Union speedskating event of the season. 24 male and female skaters, who would eventually be whittled in half, down to 12 for each gender's final distance.

When the smoke cleared, Germany’s Anni Friesinger, fully recovered from her spectacular double wipeout on the 500 at the European championships last month, emerged as the winner of the 500, with Jennifer Rodriguez of the U.S. and Cindy Klassen of Canada close on her heels. Defending allround champion Claudia Pechstein was 7th and residing in 17th was teammate Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann. But this was expected as both are notorious slow sprinters; they’d be heard from soon enough. Ann Driscoll, the only other American female entry was next to last out of the field of 24 skaters.

The 3000 would happen later on. Since every race is treated like a 500 meters, the samalog multiplies Friesinger’s .3 second margin of victory over Rodriguez by six. That meant in order for Rodriguez to take the lead, she would have to be 1.8 seconds faster than Friesinger by the time the 3000 was done. Klassen was 3 seconds back; Pechstein 6.78 seconds Gunda is 12.12 seconds in arrears.

The men’s 500 is not spared the warm weather and is equally turned into a crap shoot. The top 3 are Christian Breuer of Germany, Takiro Ushiyama of Japan and Ids Postma, 2-time world allround champion from the Netherlands. Rintje Ritsma, ahead of Postma in world titles by one, comes in 5th. Derek Parra, the Americans’ top hope for top 10 overall rank, came in 7th. No other American (KC Boutiette, Chris Callis nor John Paul Shilling) finished above 13th. So Breuer would nurse a .4 second gap over Ushiyama, .6 over Postma, 2.1 seconds over Ritsma and 4.3 seconds over Parra as the 5000 would be their next race. Keiji Shirahata of Japan was 7.5 seconds behind.

But neither of the two next-longest distances would occur any time soon. The decision was made by the race organizers to delay the competition by four hours until the ice had hardened, which sent howls of outrage throughout the crowd and the skaters themselves. To go on right after the 500 had ended would have compromised the event. Begrudgingly, everyone cools their jets until 5:30PM local time, where nightfall would just be settling in and the promise of more fairer conditions.

Fortunately, the conditions did improve and the women’s 3000 kicked off on its revised schedule. Of the top 3 from the 500 (Friesinger, Rodriguez and Klassen), Rodriguez was the first to go on her way. It was in this same distance in Milwaukee at last year’s allround championships which sealed her fate in not qualifying for the final distance, finishing out of the top 15. With 4 pairs left out of 12, Rodriguez’s time was good enough for second place. Friesinger and Klassen followed with the German getting the better of the pairing. Then the skaters who were traditionally strongest as the distance increased made their mark - all but one.

Renate Groenewold and Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann skated next. At the 2200 meter mark, Niemann forgot to change lanes and skated behind Groenewold on the final outer lane. The mistake happened again with a lap to go as Niemann stayed in the outer lane, even though Groenewold alone was supposed to be in it at the time. Groenewold won the pairing - and the 8-time world champion was disqualified. The Dutchwoman’s time held up and she won the 5000, with Pechstein second and Friesinger third. Rodriguez finished 8th on the 5000, but the drop in the overall ranking wasn’t too bad at all - she was 6th after the first day’s races, a hell of a lot better than she was a year ago. Friesinger retained her overall lead on now 2nd place Groenewold, building up a lead of 1.91 seconds going into the 1500 meters, with Pechstein lurking in 3rd, 2.67 seconds back, with the final distance, the 5000 all but assured. Klassen finished 6th, which meant she only dropped one spot to 4th overall, while Barbara deLoor of the Netherlands rounded out the top five.

The men’s 5000 would finish up Saturday’s racing. Ushiyama, the runner-up on the 500, didn’t do quite as well on the 12.5 lap trek, finishing 19th out of 24. Breuer, the 500m leader, could only manage 13th. Postma uncorked a great race to take the lead with 5 pairs left. Parra, unfortunately, was a dozen seconds behind him in 18th, not even cracking the 7-minute mark and his chance of going to the final distance took a major hit. Bart Veldkamp of Belgium, who came everthisclose to winning the European crown last month with his near-legendary comeback on the final distance of the final pair of the meet, wins the 5000 in track record time. Ritsma finished 7th, while Frank Dittrich of Germany, next-to-last on the 500, wound up with the bronze. Boutiette was actually the top American in 14th. Callis and Shilling were second from last and last. None of them,unfortunately, 'found the two', as I had pleaded with the national team last week to do.

The samalog was wildly different. Postma was in first place, Ritsma just .93 of a second behind. Shirahata leapfrogged from 9th to 3rd overall and Veldkamp soared from 20th to 6th. Parra plunged to 11th in the samalog, which meant his place on the final distance was still not secured. Sergei Tsybenko of Kazakhstan was 8th at this point, but since others had finished on the top 6 of the 5000, he was actually the 12th skater to qualify for the 10,000 at that point.

So Parra would have to defeat him by 99/100ths of a second on the 1500. If he did, Parra would qualify for the 10,000. It would be a most interesting Sunday. It had already been decided there would be the same four-hour break between the 1500 meters and the two final distances (women’s 5000, men’s 10000).

Sunday, February 12, 10AM local Budapest time:

Friesinger, the skater in question who bared it all for the German weekly magazine Stern in an interview and a five-page photo spread a week and a half before the championships, continued her mastery of the metric mile this season by almost a second over countrywoman Pechstein and a very surprising Klassen, scoring her second bronze medal of the weekend. Groenewold and deLoor brought up the rear in the top 5. Rodriguez did exactly what she had to do, just skate her race and wound up 9th. She made the final distance, which is what the goal was all along. Friesinger’s lead over Pechstein and Groenewold ballooned to 12.11 and 12.19 seconds, respectively, with Klassen, the surprise of the event, still entrenched in 4th overall, just 4.2 seconds out of the bronze.

The men’s 1500 followed. Parra would have to put his 5000m behind him, but the draw would not do him any favor; he would skate before Tsybenko, so the Kazakh would know exactly what he would have to do to hang onto the 12th and final spot. Unfortunately, Parra does gain some ground, but nowhere near the .99 he needed to overtake Tsybenko. So for the second year running, no American male skater made the 10,000m final distance.

Postma and Ritsma would engage in a stirring duel on the 1500's final pairing, a race which Postma won with just 6/100ths of a second. So the samalog ranking had Postma in the driver’s seat, with Ritsma second, and Aleksandr Kibalko of Russia 3rd. Breuer was 4th, Molicki still hung in there in 5th. There figured to be major movement on the 10,000, as Kibalko and Breuer were sprint to middle-distance specialists whose ability tailed off as the distance increases. Postma had a 6.54 second lead over Ritsma, but the two will not be paired together on the 10,000. Ritsma would instead face Molicki, while Postma would close out the championships against Shirahata.

Four hours later, the women’s 5000 begins. Klassen puts an exclamation point on her spectacular weekend as she is paired with the woman who beat her by 2 seconds on the same distance at the continental qualification at Milwaukee. She takes Rodriguez out behind the woodshed and lays the smackdown on her, winning her pairing by a staggering 15 seconds. The American plunged to dead last on the 5000m standings and will drop in the overall samalog as well, pending the outcome of the final two pairs.

Groenewold vs. Pechstein, a direct battle for the silver (#3 vs. #2 overall) followed. Pechstein’s superior experience and championship mettle carry her through as she defeats Groenewold by nearly 4 seconds to ensure at least a silver medal. Groenewold and Klassen would be 3rd and 4th, pending the outcome of Friesinger-deLoor, which would close out the women’s championship. deLoor eventually pulled away from Friesinger, but of more import to the German was that her 12.11 second lead over Pechstein was evaporating with each passing lap. For the fans in attendance, it seemed to be a rerun of Veldkamp-Shepel from the European championships 10,000 all over again. Luckily, Friesinger stabilized her times and eventually held onto win the first world championship of her senior career (to go along with the 1996 World Junior women’s crown she won in Calgary by slightly more than one second over Pechstein, who won the overall silver and Groenewold, who snared the bronze. Klassen won her third championships individual bronze of the weekend, good for 4th overall while deLoor’s victory over Friesinger in their pairing ensured she would stay in 5th.

Now the men would close it out. Veldkamp, in 6th position overall, would vie against Dittrich. Veldkamp skates a track record and soars to the lead with still three pairs left. Kibalko and Breuer would skate head-to-head next; both are almost 40 seconds behind the Belgian, so with two pairs left, Veldkamp is assured of at least 4th, and possibly the bronze. Ritsma and Molicki toe the line next, with Postma on deck. Ritsma comes in second to Veldkamp in 13:56.07. So Postma would have skate 14:02.61 or better to win back the title for the third time in his career.

He doesn’t. Postma finishes 8th, in a time of 14:17.51.

Ritsma gets the duke, joining Norwegian Ivar Ballangrud (1926, 1932, 1936, 1938), Atje Keulen-Deelstra (1970, 1972-74) and Karin Kania-Enke (1984, 1986-88) as a four-time winner of the allround championship. Postma won the overall silver and Veldkamp’s 10K win and track record held up for the bronze.

So the rich get richer; for the Dutchmen, their 7th straight world championship as a country. For the German women, it was the 19th time in the last 20 years they won this title. Can you say ‘dynasties’? For the Americans, it was a weekend of what might have been. The fact that one of their team made the final distance, in itself, improving upon their result of last year, would have to do as a good moment. And it was.

The final allround-only world cup of the 2000-01 campaign is in Hamar, Norway (1994 speedskating Olympic venue) next weekend, and we'll have full coverage of it, as well as a critique of some crazy tv scheduling by ABC when it comes to televising speedskating (which they will finally do next month).