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

[heywoodu 16,367]

2 minutes ago, copravolley said:

This youngster has a chance, but only if his progression continues until February. As of today, he'd be in 4th or 5th place, alongside the Frenchman, based on his World Cup times in December.

If you're capable of skating 12:35 at this very, very high air pressure, you are at the very least someone with an outside shot, if not more. For those new to the Olympics: it's not like a regular competition, there's insane extra pressure and everything, you simply can not just look at the fastest times of the past 1-2 years and say "well, that's gonna be the result".

 

12:35 in these conditions is absolutely at least as good, if not better, than for example Semirunniy's 12:28 in a 4-way start.

[copravolley 586]

2 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Nicola Tumolero (!) has Olympic bronze, and so does Ghiotto. Fabris in 2006 certainly wasn't someone you could expect to win a medal. There's no reason to be so unbelievably negative man  

Fabris was absolutely spot-on in his form for the 2006 Olympics. It was a masterpiece. He's never been in such great shape before or since. Moreover, in the 1500 meters, no one was out of reach at the time. The chances of that happening with Ghiotto are slim, as he peaked one or two years ago, and even a bronze medal would be a failure for him – he already won bronze in 2022, when he was much weaker than he is now.

[Noorderling29 208]

5 minutes ago, copravolley said:

This youngster has a chance, but only if his progression continues until February. As of today, he'd be in 4th or 5th place, alongside the Frenchman, based on his World Cup times in December.

Given the high air pressure you seriously underestimate just how good especially his time today is. According to the TV pundits, it can be compared to the world record.

[heywoodu 16,367]

1 minute ago, copravolley said:

Fabris was absolutely spot-on in his form for the 2006 Olympics. It was a masterpiece. He's never been in such great shape before or since. Moreover, in the 1500 meters, no one was out of reach at the time. The chances of that happening with Ghiotto are slim, as he peaked one or two years ago, and even a bronze medal would be a failure for him – he already won bronze in 2022, when he was much weaker than he is now.

Alright.

[copravolley 586]

2 minutes ago, Noorderling29 said:

Given the high air pressure you seriously underestimate just how good especially his time today is. According to the TV pundits, it can be compared to the world record.

He won by 10 seconds over Bergsma and Bosker not a great result for me. In their best races, Ghiotto beat this guys by well over 10 seconds.

[copravolley 586]

6 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Alright.

It was a funny thing that Fabris and speed skating saved the entire Olympics for us in 2006 - without their 2 gold medals it would have been a disaster on home soil... Cross-country skiing also gave a lot, but that was expected, because we were a great power there at the time....

[heywoodu 16,367]

Marrit Fledderus is the tragedy of this year, double false start  

 

Annoying starter, he let everything go the whole time, even when riders were clearly moving, but now he calls it off..

[Noorderling29 208]

[Noorderling29 208]

[NearPup 3,803]

1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

Stefano Donagrandi and Ippolito Sanfratello

Why are you just making up fake Italian names? :P

 

But once again, I feel like people always underestimate how weird Olympic speed skating results can be. There are always people who find the form of their lives, people who overtrain, people who are randomly in bad form and people who have been hiding their form all season.

Edited December 28, 2025 by NearPup