Speed Skating at the Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022

[NearPup 3,051]

1 minute ago, rafalgorka said:

Have anyone seen Dubreuil's false start? I can't see it. did he actually do it? I think he didn't move.

Weirdly in real time I thought it was a false start but I can't see it at all in slowmo.

 

5 minutes ago, intoronto said:

Only Canada can have athletes win a medal at every stop of the preceding seasons World cup but not medal at the Olympics. What a joke!

It's really not a surprise, Canadians who are favourites rarely win at the Olympics.

[orangeman 1,989]

13 minutes ago, NearPup said:

Weirdly in real time I thought it was a false start but I can't see it at all in slowmo.

 

It's really not a surprise, Canadians who are favourites rarely win at the Olympics.

This is sadly true.  Every Olympics Canada has the worst World Championships to Olympic medal conversions.  I've been saying it for years, they need to invest more into psychologists.  Canadian athletes have trouble performing on the biggest stage, and it's not due to skill or funding.  It's starting to seep into hockey and curling now, too.

[stepansevs 129]

Wow there is only one race in 500m? I thought that there are two - in and out in order to be fair

[hckošice 14,830]

Just rewatched it, was funny race, but I do not really understand the reason why racers do not have 2 runs to make it more fair.

 

Man that guy was really unlucky ...

 

The last starter false start, that referee must have some eagle´s eye, because even the slow motion had trouble to figure out the false start

 

First Asian cleen sweap of the games.

[hckošice 14,830]

Men's 500m
Final Results

 

GAO Tingyu

34.32 OR

 

CHA Min-Kyu

34.39

 

Wataru MORISHIGE

34.49

Full Final Result HERE

[NearPup 3,051]

Pointed out by Gracenote on Twitter: the men's 500m event is the first ever Winter Olympic event where three different NOCs from the same continent, other than Europe, have stood on the same podium.

[OlympicsFan 858]

On 2/10/2022 at 5:13 AM, intoronto said:

Tue's maybe?

Obviously. You can't win medals in speed skaitng without doping, but this doesn't explain anything really. Russian/Chinese coaches would probably forcefully inject every single steroid that ever existed into their own children if it would give them a better medal chance. A tiny country like Norway being on the same level as Russia/China therefore must mean that Norway has a superior "training" program (same is true for the Netherlands).

[OlympicsFan 858]

8 hours ago, NearPup said:

Pointed out by Gracenote on Twitter: the men's 500m event is the first ever Winter Olympic event where three different NOCs from the same continent, other than Europe, have stood on the same podium.

Sounds crazy, but not sure how crazy it actually is. Asia is the only continent that could have achieved this and South Korea, Japan and China are probably the only countries that could have done it. I guess it is still surprising that they have never done it in speed skating/figure skating/short track. Also it was probably bound to happen in this event, considering that many times before two different asian countries won medals in the men's/women's 500 m at the olympics.

[heywoodu 15,141]

17 hours ago, hckošice said:

Just rewatched it, was funny race, but I do not really understand the reason why racers do not have 2 runs to make it more fair.

They used to, at all major events, because....well, it's the only way to have a fair 500m competition. There wasn't even really ever any significant discussion about it, because everyone knew the two-run format was by far the best one (the only one, even).

 

But then they decided people have the attention span of a goldfish and so there we go, one race lottery.

[heywoodu 15,141]

18 hours ago, NearPup said:

Weirdly in real time I thought it was a false start but I can't see it at all in slowmo.

 

It's really not a surprise, Canadians who are favourites rarely win at the Olympics.

To be fair, Cindy Klassen went home with five medals after Turin (including a gold), and other than that, it's not like Canada has that many situations where one of them is a big favourite. Especially yesterday's 500m...sure, Canada had good chances, but it was one of the most open events of the entire Olympics, literally half the field would have been a non-surprising medalist and so every single one of them had a bigger chance not to win a medal than the other way around  

 

And about the World Cup thing: that's speed skating, where the World Cup just doesn't really have much meaning. I think only in the 'X-Games events' the World Cup means less  

 

I've been watching speed skating for 20+ years and I don't think I remember a single season where there was more than a minute of talking about who would win the World Cup classification in a certain distance (or overall, I think they have as well now?).