SPEEDSKATING: Gone in 4.1 seconds

Gianni Romme, the 2000 allround world speedskating men’s champion will not defend that title in Budapest, Hungary next Saturday and Sunday, even though he won the 5000m race as expected at the first of two combined world cup events (sprint and allround distances contested the same weekend) at Ijsstadion Thialf in Heerenveen, Netherlands.

Rather, it was Rintje Ritsma who secured the third and final spot on the Dutch allround world championship team. Romme could only manage a 4.1 second margin of victory over Ritsma, who finished fourth.

Afterward, even Romme, who led a Dutch sweep of the top four places on the 5000, admitted he was not in top condition after his illness and said maybe Ritsma was the best choice for the final spot on the team. Holland’s Top Sport Committee agreed and selected Ritsma several hours after the world cup ended.

It is the second time in three years that a world allround champion, due to selection rules in his home country was unable to defend the title he won the prior year. In 1999, Ids Postma fell in his first race of the European Championships and was eliminated from contention for the continental title. Since that was the chief qualifier for the world allrounds that year, even though he won the world title the year before, he could only go as a reserve.

In an ironic twist of fate, Ritsma won that year’s championship in Hamar, Norway, up until now the last of his three crowns. Ritsma will join Postma and Jochem Uytdehaage, winner of the skate-off on January 25, which determined the second spot on their team.

The final spot on the Dutch women’s squad who will go to Budapest was decided in Heerenveen as Tonny deJong, on the strength of her 3000 meter race, edged out Barbara deLoor for the third and final spot. She will join countrywomen Renate Groenewold and Wieteke Cramer next weekend. Groenewold’s status, however is up in the air, as she is suffering from a stomach virus. She could be replaced, if need be, but no decision was arrived at as this goes to press.

The effects

The news of Romme’s ouster from the world title picture greatly overshadowed another impressive weekend by the visiting continent. The speedskating governing bodies of the U.S. and Canada should be quite happy with what went down this weekend. Or one should say, what went up.

The rivalry between Canada’s Catriona Lemay Doan and Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt of Germany resumed with the advantage going to the ‘Cat, winning 3 consecutive golds in two 500 and a 1000m going into Sunday’s action. Garbrecht-Enfeldt spoiled her attempt at a sweep, winning the second 1000m race of the three-day meet. America’s top 2 allround aces, Derek Parra and Jennifer Rodriguez scored top-5 finishes in their respective metric mile races, which set the table for Saturday.

Chris Witty, whose 500m races have really gone south of late, rebounded to get 4th in the first of the two 1000m races, and Amy Sannes joined her in 7th. Casey Fitzrandolph, who was not the fastest American on a 500m men's sprint for the first time in recent memory on Friday (Joe Cheek was the only top 10 finisher from the U.S.) captured a bronze on the second 500, and finished 7th on the first 1000m. Cheek again outdid the national sprint champion in that race with a fourth place finish, just .14 out of another bronze. On Sunday, Nick Pearson had himself a day to remember, as he won his first-ever world cup medal, a bronze, on the second 1000m race of the weekend. Fitzrandolph (5th) and Cheek (8th) joined him in the top 10.

Other winners this weekend were Hiroyasu Shimizu, who swept both men’s 500m races and set track records on each day; Adne Søndrål of Norway and Erben Wennemars of the Netherlands split the 1000m races between them. Søndrål also picked up a metric mile (1500m) win as well, defeating Postma, his arch-rival by just .12 of a second. Claudia Pechstein of Germany, the defending women’s world allround champion swept the 1500 and 3000 with Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann a surprising 7th on the former.

The next world cup meet will be in two weeks time in Hamar (February 14-15, an allround-only affair), and the World Cup Final will close out the long-track regular season on March 1-3. A multiple world-record alert is in order here, as for the first time in 5 years, the oval which will host it . . . will be Calgary.

The favorites

If there was any doubt Apolo Anton Ohno was a rock-solid medal favorite for Salt Lake City in short track speedskating, he crushed any doubt of it by going out with a bang on that discipline’s final weekend of World Cup racing in Graz, Austria.

Ohno, just 18, won the overall season world cup points crown after winning likewise honors for a third overall victory. He finished 6th on the 1000m which clinched for him that discipline’s championship. He also claimed the top spot in both the 500 and 1500 and won gold on the 3000 as well. In the other two World Cup events, he finished second overall. But he wasn’t alone in the good news department.

Dan Weinstein capped off his 20th birthday with his first career short track gold medal on the 1000. Rusty Smith picked up the bronze. The former placed third in the weekend’s compilation of races while Smith was 6th. Weinstein became the fourth American short-tracker to win a medal.

The skaters can now relax and train at a leisurely pace as the next big event on the docket will be the March 30-April 1 World Short Track Championships in Jeonju City, Korea. Ohno should now be considered an overwhelming favorite to distribute some serious blues to his opposition then.

What it all means

So now that all the pieces are in place for next weekend’s allround world championships, let’s try to predict how this will go down.

It is a two-day event, beginning Saturday, in which 24 men will contest 500 and 5000m distance races, while 24 women will partake in 500 and 3000m events. Sunday is the equivalent of a PGA tour cut-down day, as each gender will skate the 1500. If you are in the top 6 of the second distance, or the top 6 of the overall samalog ranking after the 1500, you get to skate a fourth and final distance; for men, the 10000m - for women, the 5000. If not, your championship quest ends. So it’s especially important to heed the advice of Patrick Swayze as he coached Jennifer Grey in 'Dirty Dancing', three little words which, if taken to heart, will greatly improve one’s chances for good things to happen - “find the two”.

The key is the 2nd race; a fact lost, unfortunately on the home team last year in Milwaukee and as a result, for the first time in 6 years, neither a U.S. man nor woman qualified for the final distance. The last time an American won a world allround medal was 1988 (Dave Silk, bronze and Eric Flaim, who won). The last American women’s medal was in 1981 (Sarah Docter, bronze)

So who’s represented by continent? Europe, as is almost traditional, has the most skaters, 13 women and 12 men. North America follows with 6 women and 7 men, and Asia brings up the rear with 5 men and women each. Should a country not be able to fulfill its quota of skaters, for women, the first vacant start position would go to Europe and the next two start positions go to Asia. For men, the first two vacant start positions go to Europe, the third to Asia.

For us Yanks, Derek Parra and Jennifer Rodriguez are a heck of a lot better now than they were a year ago, and represent the country’s best hopes for a top 10 finish. But the question mark for each is the second distance. As of today, J-Rod is 16th on the combined 3000/5000m world cup points list; Parra is 17th on the combined 5000/10000m list. Those rankings must be improved significantly if either have any notions of contending for the top 10 or even higher.

KC Boutiette has been an enigma all season; he is 13th on the 1500m points standings, 29th in the 5/10k. It does not appear that he will make the final distance. Perhaps he’ll pull a surprise, but the jury is still out. For Chris Callis, John Paul Shilling and Ann Driscoll, it will be their world championships debut, and a golden opportunity to gain valuable experience in a pressure-cooker setting. And if any of them qualify for the final distance, so much the better. The fact the Americans held their national championships outdoors may be an advantage, as Budapest’s Varosligeti Mjuegpalyapark Oval is also outdoor. No, I didn’t make that name up.

The Dutch men, of course, will be right at ground zero in the thick of the medal hunt, with Ritsma and Postma combining for five of the past 6 championships. They have a superstar in waiting in Uytdehaage, and this will be his first of many an appearance on this stage. Perennial contenders Bart Veldkamp of Belgium and Frank Dittrich of Germany are always a threat on the longer distances. European champion Dimitri Shepel of Russia will do his darndest to bring the title home for the first time since 1987, and must be considered a legit threat for the top of the podium. Unfortunately, the Norwegians, who have sent at least one male skater to these championships for the past 104 years, will sit this one out.

As Claudia Pechstein will discover, the only tougher thing than winning a world championship is hanging onto it.

When you factor in the former East Germany, and remove 1994 from the equation, German women have had a stranglehold on the allround world championship since 1982. With Pechstein, 8-time world titleist Gunda Niemann Stirnemann, who routed her at last month’s European championships and a healthy Anni Friesinger, it will be awful tough for the rest of the field to crack that nut open. But try they will, the Dutch, led by Wieteke Cramer, the bronze medalist from Europeans as well as Tonny deJong, 2-time European champion and Renate Groenewold, bronze medalist in last year’s championships. Maki Tabata and Nami Nemoto are the key Japanese contenders. If Rodriguez falters, look for either of Canada's Cindys - Klassen and Overland, to take up the mantle for North America as it was Overland who was the only North American to qualify for the women's 5000m final distance last February.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say Shepel will upset the Dutch trio, as he has the confidence boost from the Europeans to fuel his desire to win. Ritsma should easily be 2nd and Uytdehaage 3rd. On the women’s side, the question will be two-pronged; can Pechstein put out of her mind the smackdown Niemann-Stirnemann laid on her last month, and will Friesinger be at full strength after wiping out at the Europeans, as well as a first-race spill in Milwaukee at last year’s worlds. If the answer to both is no, then Gunda wins her 9th title. I think she will hold off Friesinger, who at 23 is the future of allround speedskating in Germany and Pechstein will get the bronze.

But what do I know, right? These championships are outdoors for the first time in five years. One freak snowstorm or warmup will throw everything into chaos. Whichever way it turns out, you’ll have a recap of it here next week.