Speed Skating at the Winter Olympic Games 2018

[Dragon 2,026]

 

 

[Dennis 759]

Whitmore qualifying over Garcia and Hansen on the 1.000m is a surprise to me. The rest, not so much.

 

A 2,7 second gap between Brittany Bowe (2nd) and Mia Manganello (3rd) on the 1.000m. 

 

Heather Bergsma's time of 1:14,82 on the 1.000m in Milwaukee is good, way faster than anyone at the Dutch trials, although the ice in Heerenveen was terrible on that first day.

[NearPup 3,496]

First results out of the Canadian selection.

 

Ted-Jan Bloemen qualified for the men's 5000m (surprise, surprise) and on the women's side Ivanie Blondin, Isabelle Weidemann and Brianne Tutt qualified for the 3000m.

 

Edit: as an FWI, some athletes qualified from previous results before the trials. Alex Boisvert-Lacroix qualified for the men's 500m, Ted-Jan Bloemen qualified in the men's 10000m, Olivier Jean is qualified for the men's mass start, Ivanie Blondin is qualified in the women's 5000m and both Ivanie Blondin and Keri Morrison are qualified for the women's mass start.

Edited January 5, 2018 by NearPup

[NearPup 3,496]

Oh, Carlijn Schoutens won the women's 5000m at the US Olympic trials by something like 10 seconds. Just as well since she's the one who earned the spot (and no other US women was anywhere close to getting a quota).

[phelps 8,287]

6 hours ago, Nate River said:

Oh, Carlijn Schoutens won the women's 5000m at the US Olympic trials by something like 10 seconds. Just as well since she's the one who earned the spot (and no other US women was anywhere close to getting a quota).

 

not a good show for the audience...especially when you have just 4 starters in 1 race (the women's 5k) and only 2 in the other event of the night (the men's 10k)...

I really thought the US speedskating had a bit more depth than this...

 

p.s. there's no a guaranteed place before the Canadian trials for Vincent De Haitre? he did quite well in both 1000m & 1500m this season...

[heywoodu 16,004]

1 hour ago, phelps said:

 

not a good show for the audience...especially when you have just 4 starters in 1 race (the women's 5k) and only 2 in the other event of the night (the men's 10k)...

I really thought the US speedskating had a bit more depth than this...

 

p.s. there's no a guaranteed place before the Canadian trials for Vincent De Haitre? he did quite well in both 1000m & 1500m this season...

US speedskating has no depth in the longer events  

 

Apart from Chad Hedrick, they never really had big names there (Shani Davis was ok for a while, but mostly an all-rounder)

[Dennis 759]

1 hour ago, phelps said:

 

not a good show for the audience...especially when you have just 4 starters in 1 race (the women's 5k) and only 2 in the other event of the night (the men's 10k)...

I really thought the US speedskating had a bit more depth than this...

 

p.s. there's no a guaranteed place before the Canadian trials for Vincent De Haitre? he did quite well in both 1000m & 1500m this season...

US has no quota on the 10.000m and they're also not on the reserve list. So the fact that they even organized this event is pretty strange to me.

 

In recent years, there has been no American female who performed well on the 5.000m. Schoutens has benefited from the rules change that a country can only obtain a maximum of 2 quotas on the 5.000m for women, instead of 3 as it used to be, as both  and  had 4 skaters who were higher in the SOCQ (Special Olympic Qualification Classification). Furthermore, there was only one quota up for grabs in the women's 5.000m and as Nate River said, it was pretty clear from the start who would qualify.

[NearPup 3,496]

3 hours ago, phelps said:

 

not a good show for the audience...especially when you have just 4 starters in 1 race (the women's 5k) and only 2 in the other event of the night (the men's 10k)...

I really thought the US speedskating had a bit more depth than this...

 

p.s. there's no a guaranteed place before the Canadian trials for Vincent De Haitre? he did quite well in both 1000m & 1500m this season...

The 10km was just to be national champion, and the women’s 5k was more or less decided in advance.

 

For Canada in events other than the mass start you needed to win a world cup medal this fall and be ranked top 5 in the world cup for the distance (with the caviat that there must be at least one open spot at the trials, which is why Bloemen didn’t prequalify in the 5k).

[NearPup 3,496]

So Erin Jackson qualified for the US women's Olympic team. In case you don't recognize the name, well, she started speed skating four months ago. She achieved the ISU qualifying standard time at trials, too (and trials in Milwaukee, not Salt Lake). She is a world champion in inline speed skating and, clearly, she has potential.

[NearPup 3,496]

To highlight the insanity of Speed Skating Canada's selection criteria, if the Netherlands followed the same standards they would be sending nobody in the women's 500m (the third ranking Canadian, who will be left off the Olympics, is higher on the Olympic time list then the number one ranked Dutch skater).