SPEEDSKATING: Three kilometers worth savoring...

There's one thing everybody should have learned by now - never tick Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann off, for she will exact payback in her own time and way.

After being disqualified at last week's World Speedskating Championships for a mistaken lane change, the 33-year-old German set the 13th world record race of her legendary career Saturday at the Essent ISU World Cup stop in Hamar, Norway.

Niemann-Stirnemann edged ever-so-closer to breaking the four-minute barrier on the 3000 meters with a 4:00.26 romp around the Vikingskipet oval, breaking her prior world best of 4:00.51 at the Calgary World Cup of January 30, 2000.

As was the case so many times over the years, she led a German sweep of the 3000m podium with Claudia Pechstein and Anni Friesinger getting the silver and bronze, respectively. The best American finish doubled as Jennifer Rodriguez's best showing all season on the distance, 8th place. With one race remaining, Niemann-Stirnemann closed in on her 19th career world cup points title as she has a 90-point lead over Pechstein.

In the other main race of day one of the 2-day meet at the 1994 Olympic speedskating venue, Adne Sondral of Norway sent the fans home happy with a white-knuckle victory on the men's 1500, by just 2/100ths of a second ahead of Russian Aleksandr Kibalko, with Dustin Molicki of Canada keeping the good times rolling for the maple leaf with a bronze. Derek Parra had the best U.S. finish, also an eighth place.

With the silver, Kibalko takes over as leader on the metric mile World Cup points standings with one race remaining, 272 points to Rintje Ritsma's 270. The world allround men's champion from the Netherlands fumbled his way to a 16th place finish out of 20 skaters and lost valuable points.

Sunday would see the next to last races in the women’s 1500 and men’s 5000, with the promise of a barnburner of a pairing on the latter between the Netherlands’ Gianni Romme and Bart Veldkamp of Belgium. Friesinger remained near-perfect in the metric mile with Dutchwoman Barbara deLoor spoiling the usual German sweep of the medal stand with the silver. Niemann-Stirnemann captured the bronze. The best American finish was Rodriguez’s fifth. Chris Witty also competed in this race and finished tenth.

Romme, showing little effects of the flu which forced his withdrawl from the world allround championships defeated Russia’s Vadim Sayutin on the 5-kilometer distance by a little more than three seconds with Romme’s teammate Carl Verheijen skating to the bronze.

With the win, Romme increased his lead over Verheijen on the combined 5000/10000m World Cup points standings to 130 points (400-270). One 5000m race remains, two weeks from Sunday at Calgary. Parra did not race the best of 5000's, finishing 14th, the lone American in the field of 20 skaters.

Lots of Utahns have had horror stories to tell about their 2002 Olympic ticket requests, as in what they received vs. what they asked for. I wish to add my tale of woe now.

As a speedskating fan, it was disappointing to find out that 4 of the 10 races which will be contested in Salt Lake City next February (men’s 5000 and 10000, women’s 3000 and 5000) were not put on public sale, rather exclusively being part and parcel of package deals only. So with those tickets out of reach, I opted to aim for all of the remaining six races and the closing ceremony.

The verdict came in on Thursday. I did get my ticket to the closing ceremony, which I’ll receive in my hands come the first of next year or so, but also got only one of the six speedskating events I was requesting.

Major bummer...

At long last, the ice is in.

Last Tuesday, after four agonizing months of delay due to a roof collapse and a screw-up in the pouring of concrete where the ice would be laid, the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns, a suburb of Salt Lake City, finally opened for business.

Four American skaters - Cory Carpenter, Becky Sundstrom, Nick Pearson and Joe Cheek were the first to get acquainted with the oval's ice, which sits on the highest indoor speedskating oval in the world at 4,675 feet above sea level. All agreed that it would be a venue to reckon with not just for the 2002 winter Olympics, but next month's World Single Distance Championships, which will take place on March 9 -11.

Whether anyone in America will actually see a millisecond of the first World Single Distance Championship on native soil remains a question mark.

Like in Olympic coverage, those who enjoy speedskating on their television set must always look elsewhere for it; Canada's CTV network doesn't disappoint, as they will cover WSD later next month. The Dutch provide radio coverage of all of the world cups in their native language and extensive coverage of the world championships last weekend. But on the very weekend of the event, ABC, which through its contract with the International Skating Union covers ISU championships, will not do so.

Rather, they will spend that weekend with brief one-hour highlight shows on the world sprints from Inzell and the world allrounds from Budapest on consecutive days (March 10 and 11, respectively). It is a programming decision which defies logic. Yes, NBC will carry the 2002 Winter Games, but should that preclude ABC from providing same-day or, perish the thought, LIVE coverage of WSD, in which world records could fall?

Then again, ABC, like its partner ESPN, have always treated speedskating like a red-headed stepchild; last year's World Single Distances from Nagano, Japan, the 1998 Olympic speedskating venue, never saw the light of day here. Yes, Chris Witty was the only American medalist out of the 13-person team, but it showed a tremendous lack of respect for the sport and its fans. With all of the choices TV viewers have these days, shouldn't there be some consideration given to the fans and a sport itself which has been America's bread and butter in Olympic competition since day one back in February 1924?

But before one puts all the blame on ABC, perhaps US Speedskating needs to share the wealth of blame. The network’s contract with the ISU runs out, if memory serves, in 2003. So nothing can be done, unfortunately to change things around until then in terms of championships. But the national governing body of speedskating in our country I feel is not aggressive enough in trying to get the World Cups televised. The Outdoor Life cable network did televise a short track event, and they did cover the Olympic trials in Nagano, but what about the years where there are no Olympics?

For a sport to flourish, it needs television to let people know it exists. It needs TV for people to be let in on what I and fans of the sport already know; that speedskating is an exciting sport, where you don’t have to rely on judging, no kiss and cry corral as figure skating does, and that it’s you against the clock. What could be better than that? Speedskating deserves to be seen every winter season, not just one in where an Olympics is around the corner. I would think that USS itself believes that.

US Speedskating would be well advised to get their sport and their athletes out into the public eye now more than ever, with the pre-Olympic season coming up in 8 months or so. After the World Single Distance Championships are over with, they should actively start negotiations with any sports cable network of their choosing begin the regular broadcasts of world cup races, if they don’t fall under the ABC-ISU contract. More television exposure may bring more potential athletes to the sport. Otherwise, the painfully thin talent base we have (according to the Amateur Skating Union, there are less than 3000 speedskaters in the country) will not grow because the stars of today will eventually move on - and what will they do then?

The column is going to take a week off, but I’ll be back week after next with same-day coverage of the Calgary World Cup Final, which will kick off speedskating’s version of March Madness. We’ll not only have a column for each day of the three-day event, but also the same setup for World Single Distances as well. It will be a two-weekend season-ending flourish unlike any other in the sport’s recent past. Two weekends which will go a long way toward determining which oval is the fastest on earth. Will Calgary still reign supreme, or will the upstart oval in Utah give them a run for their money?