SPEEDSKATING: World Single Distances: End of an era? Likely.

At 2:32PM Eastern time on March 11, 2001, the torch was officially passed in terms of the fastest speedskating venue on the planet.

For the first time and in a non-Olympic year, no less, since 1988, the University of Calgary does not house the fastest indoor speedskating oval in the world. That distinction now belongs to the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns, UT, suburb of Salt Lake City. And the man who tipped the balance of power in world record rewriting of races from Calgary to Kearns, probably forever, was a Canadian.

Barely a half hour into the third and final day of a World Single Distance championship to remember and before another sellout crowd of around 3,000 fans, Jeremy Wotherspoon tossed a molotov cocktail on teammate Mike Ireland’s old world record on the 1000 meters of 1 minute 8.34 seconds and went 1:08.22 to win the men’s 1000m World Single Distance championship, the first of his career. He held off Norway’s Ådne Søndrål and Russian Sergei Klevchenja for the silver and bronze, respectively. Casey Fitzrandolph, hoping to swipe another medal on the kilometer to go with his 500m bronze, faltered Sunday and finished 9th. Nick Pearson was the only other American to qualify and finished 14th.

No other world records were set on Sunday, but the one that did fall was enough to give the UOO five WR’s (men’s 500 and 1000, women’s 500 , 1000 and 5000) to Calgary’s four (men’s 1500 and 5000, women’s 1500 and 3000) and Heerenveen, Netherlands’ one (men’s 10,000). The stunning part was, this was only the Utah oval’s first weekend of official business. It had survived a construction mishap in April 2000 which led to 4 injuries and the push-back of the oval’s debut until December. Then the concrete pour went awry and had to be redone in January. The oval didn’t open its doors until last month. There was heavy doubt as to whether WSD would have to be moved to Milwaukee instead.

All those doubts and setbacks were set aside. Crushed, actually. The fact it happened this weekend instead of 355-odd days from now only shows that the gap between Kearns and Calgary will widen, not shrink, over time.

The women had their final race of the season, the metric mile, and it was noted for who wasn’t participating as much as who was.

Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann and Claudia Pechstein, citing exhaustion, withdrew from the field the prior evening, leaving 2001 World Allround champion Anni Friesinger the main German in the field. Which opened up the field widely for others to shine, in particular, the home team’s Jennifer Rodriguez, who would be paired with Friesinger in the final race of the women’s competition.

Friesinger takes the fight to Rodriguez on the first two laps, on world record pace throughout. Then, in a flash, Rodriguez rallies to take the lead from Friesinger with a lap left, still on world record pace. She maintains her lead over the German into the first turn and all the way down the backstretch. She is less than 20 seconds from a world championship and the first world record of her career...

...when she hits the wall; Friesinger overtakes her on the final 150 meters and wins the race and the WSD title. Rodriguez drops from the top of the medal stand to 5th. Maki Tabata won her second medal of the weekend, a silver, and Cindy Klassen of Canada won her very first career WSD medal, bronze. Chris Witty was 8th, Amy Sannes 13th.

The prize for Rodriguez? The next 8 months wondering what might have been had she held the lead for those last 20 seconds. And serious questions about her chances for any Olympic medal 11 months hence, when Pechstein nor Niemann-Stirnemann will be spectators like they were today..

The speedskating season concluded with the men’s 10000 meters, with the specter of a possible sub-13 minute race fading fast with the news that world record holder Gianni Romme withdrew from the race due to lingering effects of a quite nasty flu bug which has turned him into an ordinary skater. It was Romme who everyone was convinced would be the first to skate a 12-minute and change 10-kilometer. Jochem Uytdehaage, the Dutch allround champion, would take his place, being the first reserve on his country’s team.

Derek Parra, the only American to qualify for the race, finished 12th out of the field of 16. Russia’s Vadim Sayutin spoiled the chance of another Dutch sweep with the bronze, but the race of the day was the final pairing, 1999 WSD 10000m champion Bob de Jong against Dutch teammate Carl Verheijen. Verheijen was dead in the water, a goner in the final lap. deJong had a 150 meter lead on him. It would be a test of character for the relative rookie. One that Verheijen passed with 1.32 seconds to spare.

He made up that deficit and won going away, denying de Jong a repeat of his 5000m gold from Saturday. deJong had to settle for the silver.

So in closing, a lousy last day of the season for the Americans - only three national records were set this weekend, well behind the Canadians’ 7 and the Japanese’s 8. It was a weekend which started out with promise and progress (the first men's WSD medals ever), and ended with a fizzle. It appeared from here the national women's team peaked a week too soon.

The Kearns oval didn’t have half of the seats in place; the capacity will be 6,500 or so...eventually. There were in excess of 50 national and 120 personal best times recorded. And an era ended a lot sooner than speedskating fans had thought it would.

The number of quality ovals for speedskating in North America pretty much doubled this weekend, and for that, fans can go ahead and be most grateful. But it wouldn’t mean a thing without the athletes.

The season ends now, with 2/3rds of a year to kick back, to train, to prepare for the first Winter Olympics of the new millennium.

On an oval which I suspect hasn’t barely scratched the surface of its potential to go fast. Very, very fast.