Dennis

Schulting

The men's 1.500m semi-finals were a mess with three penalties in the first semi-final. This is why I love short-track speed skating.

Men's 1.500m finals - Starting lists: Final A: Charles Hamelin Itzhak de Laat Luca Spechenhauser Maxime Laoun Reinis Berzins Semen Elistratov Shaoang Liu Shaolin Sandor Liu Final B: Adil Galiakhmetov Andrew Heo Christoph Schubert Denis Nikisha Nico Andermann Pietro Sighel Vladislav Bykanov

Women's 1.500m finals - Starting lists: Final A: Arianna Fontana Courtney Sarault Hanne Desmet Selma Poutsma Sofia Prosvirnova Suzanne Schulting Xandra Velzeboer Final B: Cynthia Mascitto Ekaterina Efremenkova Florence Brunelle Kristen Santos Martina Valcepina Petra Jaszapati Petra Vankova

Schilder a new PB in shotput (18.69) and is now qualified for Tokyo

The three semi finals of the men's 400m have just been won by three Dutch athletes. Now watch them finish 4th, 5th and 6th in the final.

Van der Poel

To some extent. However, Nao Kodaira will also turn 35 this year. Jenny Wolf was also still world class at age 35 and skated her personal records on the 500m and 1.000m when she was 30+. What Fatkulina is doing here is impressive, but not exceptional.

So are Brittany Bowe and Martina Sablikova for example, who are both older than Fatkulina.

Wiklund!

And the final distances of the tournament. There have been no international competitions on the 5k and 10k yet this season, so this should be interesting. Women's 5.000m: Martina Sáblíková Natalia Voronina Irene Schouten Isabelle Weidemann Carlijn Achtereekte Marina Zueva Claudia Pechstein (unless her back still bothers her, then she'll finish last) Valerie Maltais Nadezhda Morozova Ragne Wiklund Francesca Lollobrigida Anastasiya Grigoreva (weird choice when you have skaters like Sokhryakova/Lalenkova/Golubeva) Men's 10.000m: Nils van der Poel Patrick Roest Jorrit Bergsma Patrick Beckert Ted-Jan Bloemen Alexander Rumyantsev Davide Ghiotto Timothy Loubineaud Ruslan Zakharov (no Semerikov?) Peter Michael Jordan Belchos Michele Malfatti (I would have expected Tumolero here)

Predictions for tomorrow: Women's 1.500m: Antoinette de Jong Brittany Bowe Ireen Wüst Evgeniia Lalenkova Elizaveta Golubeva Natalia Czerwonka Nadezhda Morozova Melissa Wijfje Ragne Wiklund Daria Kachanova Karolina Bosiek Francesca Lollobrigida Valerie Maltais Ida Njåtun Nikola Zdráhalová Yekaterina Aydova Ekaterina Sloeva Béatrice Lamarche Sofie Karoline Haugen Abigail McCluskey Tatsiana Mikhailava Mareike Thum Sandrine Tas 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: Thomas Krol Patrick Roest Kjeld Nuis Hallgeir Engebråten Sverre Lunde Pedersen Bart Swings Connor Howe Joey Mantia Andrea Giovannini Sergey Trofimov Allan Dahl Johansson Vitaliy Chshigolev Daniil Beliaev Gabriel Odor Demyan Gavrilov Aleksandr Podolskii Marcin Bachanek Dmitry Morozov Victor Rudenko Conor McDermott-Mostowy Stefan Emele Ethan Cepuran Cornelius Kersten 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.

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.

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.

And predictions for the 1.000m: Men: 1:07,76 - Thomas Krol 1:07,86 - Kai Verbij 1:08,24 - Pavel Kulizhnikov 1:08,69 - Laurent Dubreuil 1:08,73 - Wesly Dijs 1:08,73 - Joel Dufter 1:09,01 - Ignat Golovatsiuk 1:09,07 - Håvard Holmefjord Lorentzen 1:09,25 - Marten Liiv 1:09,36 - Viktor Mushtakov 1:09,58 - Nico Ihle 1:09,70 - Piotr Michalski 1:09,78 - Connor Howe 1:09,87 - David Bosa 1:09,91 - Ruslan Murashov 1:09,95 - Odin By Farstad 1:10,26 - Artur Nogal 1:10,28 - Roman Krech 1:10,46 - Cornelius Kersten 1:10,60 - Artur Galiyev 1:10,67 - Conor McDermott-Mostowy 1:10,80 - Demyan Gavrilov 1:11,15 - Peder Kongshaug 1:11,15 - Alex Boisvert-Lacroix Women: 1:13,92 - Jutta Leerdam 1:14,05 - Brittany Bowe 1:14,23 - Jorien ter Mors 1:14,72 - Angelina Golikova 1:14,84 - Olga Fatkulina 1:15,00 - Suzanne Schulting 1:15,39 - Elizaveta Golubeva 1:15,50 - Natalia Czerwonka 1:15,57 - Yekaterina Aydova 1:15,62 - Vanessa Herzog 1:16,29 - Heather McLean 1:16,40 - Kaylin Irvine 1:16,52 - Karolina Bosiek 1:16,72 - Ida Njåtun 1:16,74 - Nikola Zdráhalová 1:17,15 - Hanna Nifantava 1:17,15 - Kaja Ziomek 1:17,30 - Béatrice Lamarche 1:17,81 - Katja Franzen 1:18,09 - Ekaterina Sloeva 1:18,93 - Ellia Smeding 1:19,00 - Josephine Heimerl 1:19,42 - Stien Vanhoutte 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.

My predictions for today, starting with the mass start: Men: Arjan Stroetinga (surprising everyone) Bart Swings Livio Wenger Jorrit Bergsma Andrea Giovannini Jordan Belchos Joey Mantia Haralds Silovs Peter Michael Stefan Due Schmidt Women: Irene Schouten Ivanie Blondin Elizaveta Golubeva Marijke Groenewoud Linda Rossi Francesca Lollobrigida Karolina Bosiek Claudia Pechstein Marina Zueva Mareike Thum

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

That was an impressive race by Golikova from start to finish!

3/3 of today’s winners predicted correctly. Let’s go Femke!

Yeah, outside lane in the final pair is probably the poorest draw she could have, but Femke Kok competes very well under pressure. Golikova also came closer and closer every world cup race, so yeah, she could very well win. Perhaps Herzog can surprise and become world champion for the second time. Kok and Herzog will be the ones I'm going to root for tomorrow. Team pursuits were more wishful thinking from my side. I think the Dutch teams are the strongest on paper when you look at the individual skaters and what times they can skate on the 1.500/3.000/5.000 metres, but other teams are better at working together. I'm really interested to see how the tougher circumstances will impact the skaters compared to the previous world cups, especially skaters like Blondin, Golubeva, Wüst and Howe who are better at the 1.500m than at the longer distances.

And predictions for the 500 metres: Men: 34,57 - Laurent Dubreuil 34,60 - Dai Dai N'tab 34,63 - Pavel Kulizhnikov 34,65 - Ronald Mulder 34,70 - Artem Arefyev 34,74 - Kai Verbij 34,80 - Ignat Golovatsiuk 34,80 - Gilmore Junio 34,87 - Piotr Michalski 34,90 - Ruslan Murashov 34,90 - Håvard Holmefjord Lorentzen 34,90 - Bjørn Magnussen 34,97 - Artur Nogal 35,01 - Joel Dufter 35,09 - Alex Boisvert-Lacroix 35,18 - Marten Liiv 35,19 - Damian Żurek 35,34 - Roman Krech 35,35 - David Bosa 35,59 - Artiom Chaban 35,68 - Nico Ihle 35,69 - Mirko Giacomo Nenzi 35,82 - Odin By Farstad 35,92 - Christian Oberbichler Women: 37,16 - Femke Kok 37,29 - Angelina Golikova 37,38 - Jutta Leerdam 37,41 - Vanessa Herzog 37,44 - Heather McLean 37,48 - Olga Fatkulina 37,74 - Daria Kachanova 37,84 - Hanna Nifantava 37,91 - Andżelika Wójcik 37,96 - Brittany Bowe 37,99 - Kaja Ziomek 38,03 - Suzanne Schulting 38,16 - Kaylin Irvine 38,25 - Yekaterina Aydova 38,54 - Karolina Bosiek 38,61 - Julie Nistad Samsonsen 38,79 - Martine Ripsrud 38,81 - Katja Franzen 39,22 - Béatrice Lamarche 39,27 - Stien Vanhoutte 39,43 - Anna Ostlender 39,50 - Sandrine Tas

Predictions for tomorrow: Team Pursuit Ladies: The top 3 teams are the teams with three solid skaters, whereas (apart from Switzerland) each team has two solid skaters, but missing a third one to compete for the podium. I think Canada and Norway benefited the most from the easier conditions during the World Cups. Team Pursuit Men: This is purely based on the individual qualities of the skaters. Norway won the World Cup, but Pedersen and Kongshaug were disappointing today on the 5.000m. Canada will start with Howe, who is more of a 1.000m and 1.500m specialist, who will struggle more with these tougher circumstances. Russia will benefit most from these circumstances. The Netherlands will most likely start with Bosker, Roest and Huizinga, who are team mates, so I expect them to work together better than the teams that started during the world cups.

Full top 10 on the women's side correct, but in a completely wrong order. Sad for Wiklund she did not medal here, I was rooting for her. The men's 5.000m prediction was quite incorrect. Disappointed by the Pedersen (2019 World Champion) and Kramer (3x Olympic Champion + 8 times World Champion) of course, but very excited to see Van der Poel win the title here. Very convincing race here and I can't wait for the 10.000 metres. I'll also keep a close eye on Aldoshkin in the future, he was my biggest surpirse of the day.

Draws are out for tomorrow: https://live.isuresults.eu/events/2021_NED_0005/schedule My predictions for tomorrow, just for fun: Women's 3.000m 3:57,53 - Irene Schouten 3:58,01 - Antoinette de Jong 3:58,57 - Natalia Voronina 3:59,61 - Joy Beune 3:59,97 - Isabelle Weidemann 4:00,33 - Martina Sáblíková 4:01,26 - Ragne Wiklund 4:04,03 - Francesca Lollobrigida 4:04,75 - Evgeniia Lalenkova 4:05,79 - Valerie Maltais 4:05,96 - Marina Zueva 4:06,59 - Magdalena Czyszczoń 4:08,29 - Sofie Karoline Haugen 4:09,10 - Nadezhda Morozova 4:09,55 - Ekaterina Sloeva 4:10,37 - Abigail McCluskey 4:10,40 - Nikola Zdráhalová 4:10,42 - Elena Eranina 4:11,67 - Mareike Thum 4:12,84 - Linda Rossi Men's 5.000m: 6:06,11 - Patrick Roest 6:10,41 - Nils van der Poel 6:11,70 - Sven Kramer 6:12,46 - Davide Ghiotto 6:12,73 - Sergey Trofimov 6:13,26 - Jorrit Bergsma 6:13,63 - Hallgeir Engebråten 6:14,93 - Bart Swings 6:15,89 - Danila Semerikov 6:17,60 - Sverre Lunde Pedersen 6:18,88 - Patrick Beckert 6:19,06 - Andrea Giovannini 6:19,18 - Jordan Belchos 6:19,28 - Michele Malfatti 6:21,08 - Daniil Aldoshkin 6:21,61 - Vitaliy Chshigolev 6:21,76 - Peder Kongshaug 6:22,16 - Ethan Cepuran 6:22,71 - Timothy Loubineaud 6:23,94 - Peter Michael

Dutch media reports that Jelinkova has qualified for the Olympics. Adriana will be the second female Dutch skier at the Olympics in history, with Margriet Prajoux-Bouma being the first one in 1952.