Inzell World Cup -- Like TV, speed skating's rerun season is in full bloom

On her home country's ice, with the end of the 2002-03 campaign drawing closer, the Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann of the sprint persuasion ended all debate on who was the best women's 500-meter and 1,000-meter skater in the post-Olympic season, while Canada once more had another terrific weekend on the speed skating oval.

The final sprint-exclusive World Cup of the season played out at Inzell, Germany's Ludwig Schwabl Stadion and the old guard kept the rest of their competition at bay. Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt had the best seat in the house -- on top of the medal stand -- in each of the three races she skated this weekend (only one 1,000m was on the schedule this time out, replaced by a 100m super-sprint event which she chose not to partake in). Her fellow 2003 World Sprint Champion, Jeremy Wotherspoon of Canada, also swept both 500m races he was in, even though he clinched the season's points championship seven weeks ago.

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Saturday's racing saw the Asian skaters take five of the top 10 spots, while Garbrecht, Catriona Lemay Doan of Canada and Manli Wang of China shaped the podium. Anzhelika Kotyuga of Belarus and Sayuri Osuga of Japan were fourth and fifth.

In contrast, Americans occupied four of the last six places in the 20-skater field (Chris Witty, Becky Sundstrom and Amy Sannes 15th, 16th and 17th, with Elli Ochowicz last).

Joe Cheek turned his country's fortunes around in a hurry with his best finish of the season (silver) behind Wotherspoon, while Dutchmen took three of the next four spots (Erben Wennemars bronze, Gerard van Velde fourth and Jan Bos sixth), with Mike Ireland of Canada nested in fifth. Kip Carpenter, the bronze medallist from the Salt Lake Olympics 500m was eighth, while Nick Pearson finished 20th and last.

The only 1,000m of the weekend saw company for Garbrecht-Enfeldt, as her teammate, Anni Friesinger pulled a semi-surprise as the silver medal winner, while Lemay Doan, Kotyuga and Witty followed in third, fourth and fifth. This was a much better showing for the home side, as Jennifer Rodriguez (6th), Sundstrom (8th) and Sannes (10th) rebounded from their poor showing earlier in the day.

On the men's kilometer, the Dutch went 1-2, with van Velde and Bos finishing ahead of Wotherspoon (bronze), Cheek (4th) and Kyu-Hyuk Lee of South Korea (5th). Carpenter was ninth, Chris Callis finished 11th, one ahead of Derek Parra, while Pearson ended up in 16th.

So with two races to go in the 1,000 meters, both next weekend at the World Cup Finals in Heerenveen, Netherlands, one title is decided, while the other will go down to perhaps the last pair of the last race of the year.

Women's 1,000 meters

1. Garbrecht-Enfeldt, 680 (clinches points title) 2. Witty, 456 3. Tonoike, 309 4. Shinya, 299 5. Kotyuga, 296

Men's 1,000 meters

1. Wennemars, 555 2. van Velde, 510 3. Wotherspoon, 490 4. Bos, 428 5. Cheek, 332

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Sunday's 500m yielded an outdoor world record by Wotherspoon, handily beating van Velde and Carpenter for the gold. It was the Canadian's 45th career World Cup victory, two away from equaling Uwe-Jens Mey of Germany in the late 80's-early 90's. He can possibly break the record if he splits one of the kilometer distances on next Saturday or Sunday.

A pleasant surprise for the Dutch occurred on the women's 500m. Marianne Timmer, who has had an erratic season, got some much-needed momentum going into next weekend's home ice tilt with a silver, actually beating out Lemay Doan (bronze), Wang (4th) and another surprise, Timmer's teammate, Marieke Wijsman (5th), her highest World Cup finish.

Witty was the top American in 13th, and the less said about Sundstrom (15th), Sannes (18th) and Ochowicz (19th), the better. (And the only reason Oschowicz didn't finish last again was the fact Sayuri Osuga of Japan hurt her chances of a second place overall finish on the distance by getting disqualified). Shihomi Shinya, bronze medallist at the World Sprint championships, didn't help her cause much by faltering to 16th on Sunday.

With also two races remaining, Lemay Doan has an outside shot at becoming a three-peat winner in the season's points race, but she'll need to be at her absolute best next weekend to do it. Don't bet on it, however. Here's how things stand.

Women's 500 meters

1. Garbrecht-Enfeldt, 740 (now with 33 career World Cup wins, tied with Lemay Doan for third all-time among women. Niemann-Stirnemann has 98 wins, Bonnie Blair, 66.) 2. Lemay Doan, 676 3. Osuga, 527 4. Shinya, 504 5. Wang, 488

Men's 500 meters

1. Wotherspoon, 848 (clinched title in January) 2. Joji Kato (JPN), 538 3. van Velde, 473 4. Wennemars, 442 5. Dimitri Lobkov (RUS), 379 (with Bos just two points behind)

There was a 100m super-sprint competition that closed the Inzell World Cup, with Canadians Mark Nielsen and Lemay Doan emerging victorious.

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The prior weekend in Kushiro City, Japan, the best young speed skaters in the world, age 19 and under, were shown the door out into the spotlight at the 2003 World Junior Championships. This event is different from the traditional World All-round Championships in two ways: 1) the race distances are different, and 2) what happens after the individual champions are crowned.

A field of 44 men and 38 women would skate three distances each -- 500m, 1,500m, 3,000m for the men and 500m, 1,000m and 1,500m for the women. The best 24 skaters of each gender would advance to the final distance. For the men, it would be the 5,000m (not 10,000m), while for the women it would be the 3,000m (instead of the 5,000m).

When all the left turns were done, the Dutch welcomed one more potential star into their ranks, while the Canadians followed up Cindy Klassen's World Championship earlier in February with another one of their own.

Remco Olde Heuvel was the bronze medallist at the prior year's championship in Collalbo, Italy, but this time, he repelled all comers to win his first career world title. He won two races (1,500m and 3,000m), and didn't get off the podium in the other two (3rd, 500, and runner-up, 5,000m). He easily defeated Robert Lehmann of Germany (silver overall and the 5,000m winner) and bronze medallist Seung Hwan Lee of South Korea.

The Dutch placed their three-man team in the top six, with Shingo Doi of Japan fourth and Holland's Rhian Ket fifth. Two Americans made the cut for the last 24, with Paul Dyrud 20th and Tucker Fredericks next to last.

Shannon Rempel of Canada, despite a seventh place finish on the 3,000m, didn't finish out of the top four in any of the other three races, and won herself her country's first World Junior Women's Title since Elizabeth Appleby's 1976 crown. That was the same year Sylvia Burka won the women's World All-round title, a drought of 27 years that ended last month with Klassen's breakthrough performance in Sweden. It was the first Canadian Junior World Championship medal of any color since Mark Knoll's silver in the 1996 men's championships.

Eriko Ishino of Japan had to settle for the silver for the second year in a row, and Maria Lamb won the first U.S. medal of a world junior nature since Catherine Raney's silver in 1998 with the bronze. Brittany Schussler of Canada was fourth and Anna Rokita of Austria (where they've been looking for a successor to six-time winter Olympian and 1994 World All-round Champion Emese Hunyady) rounded out the fab five. One other American, Heidi Stangl, cracked the overall top 10 (8th; she had top 5 finishes in the 1,500m and 3,000m, but finished out of the top 15 in the two shorter distances).

At the end of the championships, men's and women's team pursuit races ensued to determine official bragging rights of 3,200m and 2,400m, respectively. Japan, the Netherlands and Korea were the top three on the men's race, while the Dutch cruised by Japan and Canada on the ladies side. The Americans finished fifth in the women's and seventh in the men's field.

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As this season draws to an end, now is as good a time as any to unveil the schedule of for the International Skating Union's Speed Skating Championship competitions for the 2003-04 season.

Jan. 9-11: 2004 Europeans; Heerenveen (where else, it seems?) Jan. 17-18: 2004 World Sprints; Nagano, Japan Feb. 6-8: 2004 World All-rounds; Hamar, Norway Feb. 20-22: 2004 World Juniors; Roseville, MN March 12-14: 2004 World Single Distances; Seoul (provided we don't open a can of whoop-ass on the pesky, Stalinist North Koreans before then)

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Next weekend, the World Cup season concludes with two men's and women's 500m and 1,000m's, a men's and women's 1,500m, a women's 3,000m, plus a men's 5,000m.

On the women's metric mile, Klassen holds a 100-point lead on German Claudia Pechstein (430-330), so the former would pretty much have to withdraw due to an injury or fall to relinquish that lead. Things are much tighter on the men's 1,500m, where a three-way battle looms between Yevgeny Lalenkov of Russia (360 points, the leader), Parra (340) and Wennemars (310). Can the latter be spurred on by the home crowd to a victory in the overall ranking and the first World Cup Title of his career?

On the combined women's 3,000m/5,000m points chase, Pechstein holds a 60-point gap on Canada's Clara Hughes (400-340), with Klassen a more distant third (269). Pechstein won two and placed second in two of the remaining three races, while Hughes won one and hasn't been out of the top five in the other four. Edge to Pechstein here.

For the men's 5,000m/10,000m combined, pick a Dutchman; any Dutchman will do. Carl Verheijen won two of the five races in this classification, but Bob deJong has surged of late and is now 40 points behind him (350 points to Verheijen's 390). If both falter, Jochem Uytdehaage (310) waits in the wings.

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Now that we've made it through one of the most brutal Februarys of recent memory -- weather-wise -- around here where I live, things are looking up.

The Women's United Soccer Association opened training camps for all eight teams. Currently, the league's April 5 opener (a rematch of last year's final between Washington and Carolina), the June 18 All-Star Game, and all three post-season games in August, including the Founders Cup III championship, might be shown on ESPN or ESPN2.

Before that, though, there's still some good skating left to go. Until then...