Speed Skating Discussion | Qualification to Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina 2026 Road to Milano Cortina 2026

[Noorderling29 187]

28 minutes ago, SalamAkhi said:

In the 5000 she probably won't (first alternate at the moment). 

 

 

What are the chances of the matrix "prioritizing" a mTP squad ? 

4 years ago the third Male 500 metres qualifier was dropped for a Team pursuit rider. 

[heywoodu 16,007]

1 minute ago, Noorderling29 said:

4 years ago the third Male 500 metres qualifier was dropped for a Team pursuit rider. 

Wouldn't be surprised to see the same this time. The men's 500m has basically on or with luck two medal chances, but certainly not three (semi-realistic) ones. With Beau Snellink for now not exactly on his way to an Olympic ticket and Patrick Roest still questionable, that might only leave Chris Huizinga, Jorrit Bergsma and Marcel Bosker, and that is not exactly a group one would want to have in the team pursuit.

[Noorderling29 187]

1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

Wouldn't be surprised to see the same this time. The men's 500m has basically on or with luck two medal chances, but certainly not three (semi-realistic) ones. With Beau Snellink for now not exactly on his way to an Olympic ticket and Patrick Roest still questionable, that might only leave Chris Huizinga, Jorrit Bergsma and Marcel Bosker, and that is not exactly a group one would want to have in the team pursuit.

Agreed. But OTOH, the chances of a Male Team pursuit medal also seem rather slim at the moment, so why the hassle of dropping someone.

[SalamAkhi 337]

Qualification status that could realistically change this week, barring (except where noted) new time qualifying performances :

 

Men

 

500m : pretty much done

 

1000m : pretty much done

 

1500m : pretty much done

 

5000m : one outlier at the moment  Semirunniy. He's currently not qualified for the distance being 18/15 in the rankings and R1 time-wise. He could still punch his ticket : 

 

• either by getting into the top 15 with a very good result (a podium or even a win would be needed). If it is at the expanse of  Henriksen or, less likely,  Swings, then the loser is out. If it is at the expanse of any other, then  Sasaki is out. 
• or by hoping Lorello gets into the top 15 at the expanse of Henriksen or Swings.
• or by going faster than Sasaki (6'08''834) which seems reachable after his 10k, even in Hamar.

 

10000m : once again Henriksen is on the bubble. If  Maly, Petzold of  Farthofer gets into the top 9 at the expanse of Malfatti or Snellink, then he's out. 

 

Mass-start : not much at stake considering most of the reserve skaters will already receive an additional quota - at the moment    . Morino  will try to enter top 32 and be in those additional quota spots. 

 

Team pursuit : pretty much done

 

Women

 

500m : pretty much done

 

1000m : with  Thorup not cleared to participate one more spot is up for grabs.  Scholz would need to be in front of both Herzog (done as she's not entered) and Czerwonka (7 points) after this final week.  Silaeva would be left out. 

 

1500m : Lamarche not competing and  Zofia Braun being promoted to A division, Poland has got a real shot at a second quota. Braun will need to stay in front of Scholz and Weidemann, who could still finish ahead of her depending on how good Braun fares in A division.  Smedding would suffer from a Polish rise.

 

3000m : match-up between  Yang and  Horikawa only separated by 3 points. At the moment Yang is out (R2) but if they exchange position in the standings then Horikawa is out (R1). They could also both finish ahead of Hofmann, at the expanse of  Golubeva ultimately.  Jasch has a small shot at a second German quota too, by edging the former two skaters, eliminating them. 

 

5000m : pretty much done

 

Mass-start :  Santo Rodrigues is hanging on by a thread. The cruelty of it is that those immediately behind her -    - will get an aditional spot anyways, so it does not really matter if they finish in the top 24 ahead of her, except it would allow France to enter a second skater and two girls in the MS.

 

Team pursuit : three-way asymetrical tie for the last SOQP spot between   and , all in division A. Norway needs to beat both as they can't rely on a time Q, Kazakhstan needs to beat Norway to ensure (if they fail to beat China) the first SOQT spot and avoid the Italian wild-card*, whereas China is pretty safe.

*  is currently out but they "only" need to get into a reserve spot to be qualified, which is going faster than 3'00'92 (or faster than Norway if they too decide to skate faster). They were not far off this mark in Hamar earlier this year but the team was in a better shape overall. 

[SalamAkhi 337]

Sooooo, after day 2 :

 

 

On 12/11/2025 at 11:36 PM, SalamAkhi said:

1000m : with  Thorup not cleared to participate one more spot is up for grabs.  Scholz would need to be in front of both Herzog (done as she's not entered) and Czerwonka (7 points) after this final week.  Silaeva would be left out.

No change. To clarify, Thorup confirmed she was not going to the Games. But she still collected three quota for  that can be used by any other athlete. Still, Lindenskov has not achieved any minimum qualification time so she's not eligible. 

 

Quote

1500m : Lamarche not competing and  Zofia Braun being promoted to A division, Poland has got a real shot at a second quota. Braun will need to stay in front of Scholz and Weidemann, who could still finish ahead of her depending on how good Braun fares in A division.  Smedding would suffer from a Polish rise.

Braun just had to finish the race. She could have started and bailed out like a couple of skaters did in the 500m. But she went all the way and got DQed  So only one Polish skater and Smedding is in (she would have received an additional quota anyways).

 

On 12/11/2025 at 11:36 PM, SalamAkhi said:

3000m : match-up between  Yang and  Horikawa only separated by 3 points. At the moment Yang is out (R2) but if they exchange position in the standings then Horikawa is out (R1). They could also both finish ahead of Hofmann, at the expanse of  Golubeva ultimately.  Jasch has a small shot at a second German quota too, by edging the former two skaters, eliminating them. 

Horikawa was given the huge edge of starting in A division thanks to a couple of Dutch skips. Despite running 3s slower than Yang she still retrieved a comfortable amount of points to secure her spot. Yang benefited from the quartets but things could have gone to the wire if they ran in the same division. 

 

On 12/11/2025 at 11:36 PM, SalamAkhi said:

Team pursuit : 

*  is currently out but they "only" need to get into a reserve spot to be qualified, which is going faster than 3'00'92 (or faster than Norway if they too decide to skate faster). They were not far off this mark in Hamar earlier this year but the team was in a better shape overall. 

Italy not starting. Failing to qualify while they only had to be top 12 (with 14 teams competing) is a huge blow. 

 

On 12/11/2025 at 11:36 PM, SalamAkhi said:

5000m : one outlier at the moment  Semirunniy. He's currently not qualified for the distance being 18/15 in the rankings and R1 time-wise. He could still punch his ticket : 

 

• either by getting into the top 15 with a very good result (a podium or even a win would be needed). If it is at the expanse of  Henriksen or, less likely,  Swings, then the loser is out. If it is at the expanse of any other, then  Sasaki is out. 
• or by hoping Lorello gets into the top 15 at the expanse of Henriksen or Swings.
• or by going faster than Sasaki (6'08''834) which seems reachable after his 10k, even in Hamar.

• Nope
• Nope
• Nope

 

It was tense. Before last pair Semirunniy Lorello and Snellink (in that order with the tie breaker rule) were tied with 110 points, ahead of Henriksen. Meaning that Semirunniy was in and Snellink in too but only in the SOQT ranking, thus depriving the Netherlands of their 9th man. But Eitrem, ranking 0.07 ahead of Semirunniy, and a few seconds later Dawson, 0.10 ahead of Lorello, reshuffled the rankings completely, saving both countryman Henriksen and Dutch matrix selectors. 

 

So Semirunniy, as the world leader in the 10k (not the same event indeed) and 4th of one of the three WC qualifying races is not going to race in Milano. I guess the easy answer is to put that on him. But Sasaki, with 6'21, 13'30 and 6'21 is qualified, because he managed to be a tad faster in the first race of the season on the fastest track in the world. Semirunniy mismanaged his efforts in a flawed system that allows time quota in a World Cup circuit with huge track discrepancies, which works with unfair divisions rewarding way too much already established athletes. Like, look at those injured skaters not even going a hundred meters banking more points than 95% of B division, and yet still taking a spot next week. Erin Jackson could pull this till the end of the season and remain top 16.

[copravolley 502]

The Italian team's form is currently disastrous, especially after their excellent performance at the World Championships in March in Hamar. The miss of qualifications for the women's team is just one of bad news. The second is that Lollibrigida is completely out of form and Ghiotto has her worst results in 4 years at the World Cup. The Italian women's distance team should have been built around Lollibrigida 4 years ago, but with her gone, there's practically no one competing. Peveri and Marletti were there a few years ago, and where are they now? Another huge missed opportunity with the Olympics at home. But of course we are not as lucky as the Czech Republic to have another phenomenon after Sablikova, even though there is not even 1 professional track in the entire country!!! If someone like that appeared among us... Before Paris 2024, Marchand appeared in France in swimming and won several gold medals. No one else appeared in our country and 90% of our medal hopefuls are well over 30 years and already won medals in 2022 and 2018. This is the biggest problem for us. 

Edited 20 hours ago by copravolley

[copravolley 502]

Until early 2025, I still hoped that Ghiotto would be the similar case, how Nils van der Poel in 2022. At that time, he was dominating of the 10k and losing only to Roest in the 5k, who hasn't competed in the World Cup for 2 years. However, something went wrong with Ghiotto at the end of last season. This season has been disastrous and unfortunately.  However, if he losing to 40-year-old Bergsma in the 5k, or even more to 40-year-old Bloemen in the 5k on a European track, so something it`s wrong. Just a 1 or 2 ago, the Italian was giving them at least 4-5 seconds in such races. They must have spoil something in their preparations, because both Ghiotto and Lollobrigida are completely out of form now. And France has probably created an Olympic medalist in speed skating- the guy is 29 years old and he's not for sure a new phenomenon like Jilek. In addition, France has no indoor track and 0 tradition in this sport and in 2030 they will probably organize the speed skating competitions in... Turin.

Edited 10 hours ago by copravolley

[Monzanator 4,774]

Yes,  Semirunniy is out of Olympics 5000 due to the Division A being favored and he only started in B last season so was facing an uphill battle. We are truly looking at no medals in Cortina (no surprise) and it would be almost fitting since Cortina 1956 gave us our first ever WOG medal.

[NearPup 3,502]

14 minutes ago, Monzanator said:

Yes,  Semirunniy is out of Olympics 5000 due to the Division A being favored and he only started in B last season so was facing an uphill battle. We are truly looking at no medals in Cortina (no surprise) and it would be almost fitting since Cortina 1956 gave us our first ever WOG medal.

That being said he will still be a medal favourite in the 10000m.

[Bailer 48]

4 hours ago, Monzanator said:

Yes,  Semirunniy is out of Olympics 5000 due to the Division A being favored and he only started in B last season so was facing an uphill battle. We are truly looking at no medals in Cortina (no surprise) and it would be almost fitting since Cortina 1956 gave us our first ever WOG medal.

Is it that bad? Who are some other Polish medal contenders?