Speed Skating ISU World Cup 2017 - 2018

[heywoodu 4,279]

Speed skating World Cup 

 

This weekend is the World Cup final in Minsk of all places. Nobody cares because all world titles and important stuff have already been decided, resulting in for example 7 women in the 500m, 8 men in the 'mass' start and 3 teams (  ) in both team pursuits and team sprints 

 

http://live.isuresults.eu/2017-2018/minsk/

 

Saddest World Cup Final ever  

[Dennis 48]

Yeah, this is terrible. 

[De_Gambassi 310]

Thanks to my virtual table prior to the games, I've learnt that the world cup in speed skating means mostly shit (the Netherlands with 8 medals, yea, right) Why is that ? What are speed skaters supposed to do if not racing world cups ?  And while I'm at it what's the point of these commercial professionnal teams ? It's not road cycling, it's track cycling, I don't get what the sponsors have to gain there ?

 

Basically, I'm looking for an ABC of Speed Skating that would explain how the sport is running. (the off the field part I mean, the on the field, I get it: people put skates; they're running in circles; the dutch are winning; rinse repeat; it's boring, fine.)

[heywoodu 4,279]

22 minutes ago, De_Gambassi said:

What are speed skaters supposed to do if not racing world cups ? 

The World Cup is the smallest 'thing' in international speed skating. There's world sprint championships, world single distance championships, world allround championships and now the same things in European championships, which all count more than World Cups. I've lost track of which championships are there every year and which aren't (anymore) and so on, but there's way too many championships. 

 

Apart from that, speed skaters put way too much focus on them, although it's not as bad as swimming, which really is just dead outside of championships. 

[heywoodu 4,279]

24 minutes ago, De_Gambassi said:

And while I'm at it what's the point of these commercial professionnal teams ? It's not road cycling, it's track cycling, I don't get what the sponsors have to gain there ?

The same as in any sport: financial profit through exposure, basically, which is why the commercial pro teams are mostly in the Netherlands. It's also not track cycling by the way, it's speed skating  

 

 

[De_Gambassi 310]

Juste maintenant , heywoodu a déclaré:

The same as in any sport: financial profit through exposure, basically, which is why the commercial pro teams are mostly in the Netherlands. It's also not track cycling by the way, it's speed skating  

 

 

 

But it's similar in nature. Indiviuals (mostly) running against each other years in and years out. The set up is similar in speed skating than in other indivudual olympic sports (world cup, world/continental championships run by individuals or national teams), yet the sports developped this unique professionnal environment.

 

In other individual sports, sponsors sponsorize individuals and/or a whole national team, not a selected few number of athletes that they farm in a "team". There is no athletics or swimming Lotto Jumbo team AFAIK (nor from any other country).

[Dennis 48]

 

45 minutes ago, De_Gambassi said:

Thanks to my virtual table prior to the games, I've learnt that the world cup in speed skating means mostly shit (the Netherlands with 8 medals, yea, right) Why is that ? What are speed skaters supposed to do if not racing world cups ?  And while I'm at it what's the point of these commercial professionnal teams ? It's not road cycling, it's track cycling, I don't get what the sponsors have to gain there ?

 

Basically, I'm looking for an ABC of Speed Skating that would explain how the sport is running. (the off the field part I mean, the on the field, I get it: people put skates; they're running in circles; the dutch are winning; rinse repeat; it's boring, fine.)

 

20 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

The World Cup is the smallest 'thing' in international speed skating. There's world sprint championships, world single distance championships, world allround championships and now the same things in European championships, which all count more than World Cups. I've lost track of which championships are there every year and which aren't (anymore) and so on, but there's way too many championships. 

 

Apart from that, speed skaters put way too much focus on them, although it's not as bad as swimming, which really is just dead outside of championships. 

Another thing to note is that the majority of these Championships take place during the second half of the season (February/March), while the majority of the World Cups are skated before Christmas. That's why you see that there are always skaters who do well before Christmas in the World Cups but don't win medals at these Championships as other skaters manage to be in their best shape when it matters most.

[heywoodu 4,279]

7 minutes ago, De_Gambassi said:

 

But it's similar in nature. Indiviuals (mostly) running against each other years in and years out. The set up is similar in speed skating than in other indivudual olympic sports (world cup, world/continental championships run by individuals or national teams), yet the sports developped this unique professionnal environment.

 

In other individual sports, sponsors sponsorize individuals and/or a whole national team, not a selected few number of athletes that they farm in a "team". There is no athletics or swimming Lotto Jumbo team AFAIK (nor from any other country).

 

Which I think is odd. Why force everyone to start in national colours in cross-country or biathlon? I much prefer for example the cross-country classics (Worldloppet?), like Marcialonga and Vasaloppet, where they do have commercial teams. There's commercial teams in track cycling too, or in cyclo-cross, which is definitely both very much individual. 

 

Having professional teams increases exposure for the sponsors = sponsors win

Having professional teams makes it easier for athletes to train together = athletes win

 

There's no reason why it should all be national teams (imagine Sven Kramer and Jorrit Bergsma in one team, haha. They'd rather die)

[De_Gambassi 310]

il y a 1 minute, heywoodu a déclaré:

 

Which I think is odd. Why force everyone to start in national colours in cross-country or biathlon? I much prefer for example the cross-country classics (Worldloppet?), like Marcialonga and Vasaloppet, where they do have commercial teams. There's commercial teams in track cycling too, or in cyclo-cross, which is definitely both very much individual. 

 

Having professional teams increases exposure for the sponsors = sponsors win

Having professional teams makes it easier for athletes to train together = athletes win

 

There's no reason why it should all be national teams (imagine Sven Kramer and Jorrit Bergsma in one team, haha. They'd rather die)

 

Commercial teams in track or cyclo-cross are mostly (only ?) offsets of pro road cycling teams, aren't they ?

 

Anyway, I don't think it's an oddity that commercial teams are so rare and few between them in individual sports. What exposure is there for a sponsor when the notion of "team"  doesn't really exist in the first place ? I believe that's why the concept took off in road cycling, but not really (at all ?) in track cycling (and track cycling was really, really popular at one point in history).

[heywoodu 4,279]

2 minutes ago, De_Gambassi said:

 

Commercial teams in track or cyclo-cross are mostly (only ?) offsets of pro road cycling teams, aren't they ?

 

Anyway, I don't think it's an oddity that commercial teams are so rare and few between them in individual sports. What exposure is there for a sponsor when the notion of "team"  doesn't really exist in the first place ? I believe that's why the concept took off in road cycling, but not really (at all ?) in track cycling (and track cycling was really, really popular at one point in history).

 

They skate with their names on the suits, that's exposure. They train as a team and function as a team, which is why you often see people from one team all perform good or bad roughly at the same time. The exposure is them skating with the suits of sponsors.