World Single Distance Championships -- The power of two

One country is currently on the United States rhymes-with-spit list for its pacifist stand on Iraq. The other had won the men's 5,000 and 10,000 meter races in the six prior competitions. Together they combined for nine of the 10 golds at the 2003 World Single Distance Speed Skating Championships in Berlin this weekend, the last one of the 2002-03 season.

Germany and the Netherlands kept the playing of multiple national anthems at each medal ceremony to a minimum, with the former sweeping all five women's races, and the Dutch taking four out of five men's races. The fans at the Sportforum oval would see three titles decided Friday and Saturday, the remaining four on Sunday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the purposes of these championships, the 500 meters would be a two-race affair, with each skater starting on the outer lane Friday switch to an inner lane start Saturday and vice versa.

The men would go first, for a change, and a chance for Hiroyasu Shimizu to continue his country's (and his own) streak of never losing a 500m at a WSD. His foil, as it's been for most of his career, would be defending world sprint champion Jeremy Wotherspoon of Canada, who had been plagued with back trouble in the fortnight leading up to the event. Nevertheless, it was the 'Spoon who surged to victory by 7-100ths of a second over the defending WSD champion, with Erben Wennemars of the Netherlands and Russian Dimitri Lobkov further back. The best American hope for a podium, Joe Cheek was tied for sixth.

In the interim, the women's 1,500m would be contested, as Anni Friesinger aimed to defend her title, with serious competition from teammate Claudia Pechstein, American Jennifer Rodriguez and 1,500m World Cup and World All-round Champion Cindy Klassen of Canada. In the end, however, Friesinger continued her post-world all-round domination of the longer races with a successful defense of her crown, with Maki Tabata of Japan the silver medallist while J-Rod came in third. Becky Sundstrom, who retired from the sport at the conclusion of the competition, was ninth, and Amy Sannes finished 11th, the two other Americans in the field.

Now the men would have their second 500m race, followed by the men's 5,000m. Bad back and all, Wotherspoon ended Japan (and Shimizu's) win streak, adding the Single Distance gold to his impressive medal haul this season. Wennemars edged Shimizu for the silver. Top 10 finishes were registered by Cheek (7th) and Kip Carpenter (8th), while Nick Pearson emerged in 18th.

The men's 5000 evolved into a head-turning race not for who won, placed and showed, but for who took part for the first time in it. Chad Hedrick, a roller sports athlete from Magnolia, TX had converted from inline skating to speed skating, much like KC Boutiette, Rodriguez and Parra before him. He was smack in the middle of the pack (6th of 12 pairs) and skated the fastest time going into the break for ice resurfacing. Other, more experienced, and faster skaters would follow, as they are bunched together at the end of the event.

Yet, one by one -- Parra, Dutch/Belgian legend Bart Veldkamp, Norway's distance ace Lasse Saetre; all of them came up short. He was in silver medal position going into the final two pairs. As they had done all season, the Dutch then snuffed out any hope of a monumental surprise by sweeping the medal stand (Jochem Uytdehaage, Bob deJong and Carl Verheijen in that order), and Hedrick wound up in fifth, ahead of Boutiette (6th) and Parra (10th). He only took up speed skating in the past several months, and served notice that he may be somebody to watch out for, an American medal threat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday belonged to the ladies, as 500m and 3,000m crowns would be up for grabs, while the men's 1,500m was sandwiched in-between. The first of two women's 500 meters yielded a spectacular upset as Belarus' Anzhelika Kotyuga stunned Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt and won the first race, with a gap of 16/100ths of a second on the defending 500m and 1,000m world cup and world sprint champion. Manli Wang of China continued her great season by sliding between Kotyuga and the German for second. For the first time in her career in a WSD 500m, Chris Witty wasn't the fastest American; Amy Sannes was.

While the women took a breather, the men would see a new single distance metric mile champion crowned, as Norwegian Adne Sondral closed out his career with his last world title in 2001 (The World Single Distance championship was not held last year, an Olympic year, but it may return post-Turin, Italy in 2006). It looked to be the icing on the cake for Yevgeny Lalenkov, the World Cup metric mile points champion from Russia, but it was not to be for him or Parra, who seems to have peaked in the 2001-02 campaign.

Wennamars rebounded from his 500m loss by ambushing Lalenkov and capturing his first world single distance title, with countryman Ralf van der Rijst peaking at exactly the right time for his first-ever ISU championship medal, a silver, with Cheek, not Parra, the top Yank and bronze medallist. Lalenkov was fourth, Parra fifth and Chris Callis 10th.

So Kotyuga had the potential to spring speed skating's version of Villanova's epochal ending of UConn's 70-game women's basketball winning streak last week, but a sixth place finish in the second 500m race doomed her chances. Combine that with Wang's fourth in the concluding race allowed Garbrecht's victory to propel her to dethrone Canadian Catriona Lemay Doan, who more than likely skated her last competitive stroke this weekend. Wang and Kotyuga accompanied the German to the medal stand, with Lemay Doan fourth. Neither Sannes nor Witty finished in the top 16 overall.

The women's 3,000m followed, and could Klassen deny the duet of Friesinger and Pechstein more German hardware? Unfortunately, no, as the Canadian had a rare off-day, finishing 10th, and they went in that order at the finish. Gretha Smit of the Netherlands captured the bronze, while Catherine Raney nabbed a terrific fifth place finish. Kristine Holzer, the only other American in the field, came in 17th.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday would bring down the curtain on the season, with both men's and women's 1,000m, and the two longest distances (women's 5,000m and men's 10,000m). Friesinger added a second gold and made her country four-for-four with her 1,000m win, as Rodriguez (silver) and Klassen (bronze) ended their seasons on a good note. Witty finished 9th, and Sundstrom, in the final race of her career was 10th.

Wotherspoon's back problems caught up with him as he was unable to successfully defend his 2001 WSD kilometer title, and Wennemars seized the moment to get his second victory (and third medal) of the weekend. The 2002 Olympic 1,000m champion Gerard van Velde of the Netherlands copped the silver, while Cheek became the country's first double-medallist with his bronze. Pearson came in fifth and Carpenter 14th.

Now the longest races of the season beckoned. Friesinger, citing exhaustion, sat out the 5,000m, which Pechstein won by almost two seconds over Clara Hughes of Canada, who announced she will go on a hiatus from the sport to prepare for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. She's a world class cyclist, and is one of a select group to win a medal in both a summer (1996, Atlanta) and winter (2002, Salt Lake City, bronze 5,000m) Games. Smit added to her haul with the bronze, while Raney again finished fifth, and hung around, contention-for-a-medal-wise until the last pairing of the women's season.

Due to hitting his stride at the right time at the Dutch national allround championships, Henk Angenent, and not Uytdehaage, would be in the mix for the men's 10,000m, which was won in 2001 by Verheijen, who, if you read this column at that time, took advantage of a monumental collapse by deJong in the final 8 laps of the 25-lap marathon. DeJong had an 8 second lead on his teammate only to see it wither away with each lap until Verheijen caught him on the backstretch of the final lap to win by two seconds plus.

This time, however, was a different tale.

The 1996 world junior champion skated perhaps the best race of his life and routed Verheijen (silver) by over 10 seconds. Lasse Saetre of Norway salvaged what had been a disastrous season for the Attacking Vikings with an unexpected bronze. Parra, the only American in the race, finished 16th and last.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

And at last, the speed skating calendar is empty. The American team made great strides, even with Casey Fitzrandolph on the sidelines, as mentioned last time out. But, it still has a ways to go before it can match the depth the German women and Dutch men showed all through the season and the weekend in particular. It was a shining moment for Canada, oh, Canada, where it mined sprint and allround world championship gold, the latter for only the third time since 1897 in the person of Klassen.

It was also the season in which Calgary's Olympic Oval yielded its 15-year long title as the world's fastest speed skating facility to Kearns, Utah's similarly-named facility. The failure of the Calgary oval to yield even one individual race world record at the world sprints in January sealed now and forever that its terrific, legendary run as a world record-setting paradise was over. Over far too soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's been nice relaying the stories of a sport, which I hold dear to me, even though I've never skated a stroke in my life.

Now, in this time of crisis for the world, my thoughts and prayers go to the brave-beyond-words men and women of our armed forces who will go into battle before the week is out. God be with you all and may you all return home in short order and in one piece.