Speed Skating ISU World Championships 2021

[OlympicsFan 860]

The ISU president obviously tries his best not to promote this sport. Who thought that it would be a good idea to have this event at the same time as the biathlon/alpine skiing world championships? That’s like having the field hockey World Cup at the same time as the football World Cup. The only ones who will probably watch it are the Dutch.

[Dennis 849]

25 minutes ago, rybak said:

I missed today races  Did anyone know if someone from our men's team falled? It can be only one reason why they finished 40 seconds behind first Netherlands.

Yep, one fell. Can’t remember which one though. 

[CCB 628]

21 hours ago, rafalgorka said:

@CCB how did you know that??? ;-)))

Please don't share your tips for next events with us - YOU WILL SPOIL ALL THE FUN !!! ;-)

 

I'm joking, ofc ;-)

Well @rafalgorka, after my predictions for today it turned out that I'm only human ;-). I only predicted Golikova correctly. She skated a superb 500 meter, although she really was really lucky to be able to take advantage of her opponent at the intersection. Kok finished in the outside lane and could never profit from her opponent. But hey, Golikova deserved the win for sure.

 

The teampursuit was really close. Both winning teams know that Japan would have won, if they had participated. I think therefore the joy was not so great.

 

For tomorrow my predictions:

 

Mass start men: Bart Swings  

Mass start women: Irene Schouten  , if the Canadian ladies don't deliberately bother her again.

1000 men: Pawel Kulizhnikov  

1000 women: Brittany Bowe  . Very sure about this one, she has the ultimate draw. Inside finish against her biggest opponent, Jutta Leerdam.

[Dennis 849]

My predictions for today, starting with the mass start:

 

Men:

1.  Arjan Stroetinga (surprising everyone)
2.  Bart Swings
3.  Livio Wenger
4.  Jorrit Bergsma
5.  Andrea Giovannini
6.  Jordan Belchos
7.  Joey Mantia
8.  Haralds Silovs
9.  Peter Michael
10.  Stefan Due Schmidt

Women:

1.  Irene Schouten
2.  Ivanie Blondin
3.  Elizaveta Golubeva
4.  Marijke Groenewoud
5.  Linda Rossi
6.  Francesca Lollobrigida
7.  Karolina Bosiek
8.  Claudia Pechstein
9.  Marina Zueva
10.  Mareike Thum

[Dennis 849]

And predictions for the 1.000m:

 

Men:

1.  1:07,76 - Thomas Krol
2.  1:07,86 - Kai Verbij
3.  1:08,24 - Pavel Kulizhnikov
4.  1:08,69 - Laurent Dubreuil
5.  1:08,73 - Wesly Dijs
6.  1:08,73 - Joel Dufter
7.  1:09,01 - Ignat Golovatsiuk
8.  1:09,07 - Håvard Holmefjord Lorentzen
9.  1:09,25 - Marten Liiv
10.  1:09,36 - Viktor Mushtakov
11.  1:09,58 - Nico Ihle
12.  1:09,70 - Piotr Michalski
13.  1:09,78 - Connor Howe
14.  1:09,87 - David Bosa
15.  1:09,91 - Ruslan Murashov
16.  1:09,95 - Odin By Farstad
17.  1:10,26 - Artur Nogal
18.  1:10,28 - Roman Krech
19.  1:10,46 - Cornelius Kersten
20.  1:10,60 - Artur Galiyev
21.  1:10,67 - Conor McDermott-Mostowy
22.  1:10,80 - Demyan Gavrilov
23.  1:11,15 - Peder Kongshaug
24.  1:11,15 - Alex Boisvert-Lacroix

Women:

1.  1:13,92 - Jutta Leerdam
2.  1:14,05 - Brittany Bowe
3.  1:14,23 - Jorien ter Mors
4.  1:14,72 - Angelina Golikova
5.  1:14,84 - Olga Fatkulina
6.  1:15,00 - Suzanne Schulting
7.  1:15,39 - Elizaveta Golubeva
8.  1:15,50 - Natalia Czerwonka
9.  1:15,57 - Yekaterina Aydova
10.  1:15,62 - Vanessa Herzog
11.  1:16,29 - Heather McLean
12.  1:16,40 - Kaylin Irvine
13.  1:16,52 - Karolina Bosiek
14.  1:16,72 - Ida Njåtun
15.  1:16,74 - Nikola Zdráhalová
16.  1:17,15 - Hanna Nifantava
17.  1:17,15 - Kaja Ziomek
18.  1:17,30 - Béatrice Lamarche
19.  1:17,81 - Katja Franzen
20.  1:18,09 - Ekaterina Sloeva
21.  1:18,93 - Ellia Smeding
22.  1:19,00 - Josephine Heimerl
23.  1:19,42 - Stien Vanhoutte
24.  1:20,29 - Anna Ostlender

Bowe is the big favorite here based on the world cup races this season, but her laptime on the 500m was quite disappointing, whereas Leerdam surprised me positively. And Bowe quite often flops on big occassions when she is the big favorite, like she did at the World Championships last year.

[Dennis 849]

Japan is not here, but they are currently skating in Nagano and some of the times skated there are ridiculously good, especially if you consider that the track in Nagano is slower than Heerenveen.

 

Miho Takagi skated 1:13,21 on the 1.000 metres and 1:52,78 on the 1.500 metres, which are the fastest times ever outside of Salt Lake City and Calgary. 

[OlympicsFan 860]

I would like to know how Norway manages to develope so many great athletes. Speed skating isn’t exactly the most popular sport over there and still they produce tons of great talents while Germany hasn’t developed any in a long time. I get that most kids in Germany don’t care about speed skating, but the same is true in Norway and still they develope tons of talents despite having a much smaller population.

[Dennis 849]

 

9 minutes ago, OlympicsFan said:

I would like to know how Norway manages to develope so many great athletes. Speed skating isn’t exactly the most popular sport over there and still they produce tons of great talents while Germany hasn’t developed any in a long time. I get that most kids in Germany don’t care about speed skating, but the same is true in Norway and still they develope tons of talents despite having a much smaller population.

There's a lot of potential in Germany, but the development of skaters has been very poor in recent years. Claudia Pechstein's husband has a lot of power within the German federation and keeps making poor decisions. One example: https://www.sportschau.de/wintersport/eisschnelllauf/eisschnelllauf-vertrag-mit-sprinttrainer-nicht-verlaengert100.html

 

However, despite the poor developments in German speedskating, there are some talents coming through. The top juniors are a bit unlucky that there is no Junior World Championships this year as f.e. Anna Ostlender would have been my favorite for the title on the 500m based on her times skated in recent months. Victoria Stirnemann, Emelie Vogelsang, Isabel Kraus, Maira Jasch and Sophie Warmuth are also solid talents with great potential. Norway doesn't have such talents coming through on the women's side (besides Ragne Wiklund). On the men's side, you have Felix Motschmann and Finn Sonnekalb, but yeah, Norway does have more talent there.

 

I think overall, the number of talents in Germany is more or less equal to the number of talented skaters in Norway, with Germany leading on the women's side and Norway on the men's side.

 

What helps Norway is that Norway has 41 different 400m ice rinks, whereas Germany has 10, including the tracks in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Grefrath, Crimmitschau and München which are barely used anymore. In Norway there are competitions held on a weekly basis on most of the 41 tracks and talents are spotted in an early stage of their development.

[Dennis 849]

Predictions for tomorrow:

 

Women's 1.500m:

1.  Antoinette de Jong
2.  Brittany Bowe
3.  Ireen Wüst
4.  Evgeniia Lalenkova
5.  Elizaveta Golubeva
6.  Natalia Czerwonka
7.  Nadezhda Morozova
8.  Melissa Wijfje
9.  Ragne Wiklund
10.  Daria Kachanova
11.  Karolina Bosiek
12.  Francesca Lollobrigida
13.  Valerie Maltais
14.  Ida Njåtun
15.  Nikola Zdráhalová
16.  Yekaterina Aydova
17.  Ekaterina Sloeva
18.  Béatrice Lamarche
19.  Sofie Karoline Haugen
20.  Abigail McCluskey
21.  Tatsiana Mikhailava
22.  Mareike Thum
23.  Sandrine Tas
24.  Linda Rossi

Again, Bowe is the favorite here, but De Jong is probably on a high after her first world individual world title, the title on the team pursuit, and I think the tougher conditions favour her.

 

Men's 1.500m:

1.  Thomas Krol
2.  Patrick Roest
3.  Kjeld Nuis
4.  Hallgeir Engebråten
5.  Sverre Lunde Pedersen
6.  Bart Swings
7.  Connor Howe
8.  Joey Mantia
9.  Andrea Giovannini
10.  Sergey Trofimov
11.  Allan Dahl Johansson
12.  Vitaliy Chshigolev
13.  Daniil Beliaev
14.  Gabriel Odor
15.  Demyan Gavrilov
16.  Aleksandr Podolskii
17.  Marcin Bachanek
18.  Dmitry Morozov
19.  Victor Rudenko
20.  Conor McDermott-Mostowy
21.  Stefan Emele
22.  Ethan Cepuran
23.  Cornelius Kersten
24.  Francesco Betti

Roest will benefit from the tough conditions, but not sure if he'll try to save some energy for the 10k where he has the best draw. 

 

[rybak 3,432]

I'm very happy with 7th place for Bosiek on 1000m  Good job girl!