Venue 1994 Golds Critical Moment How It Works

History Schedule U.S. Outlook Others to Watch

Looking Back at Lillehammer Medalists Trivia

Guide to Short-Track Speedskating

Venues: The long-track speedskating venue is located in the Asahi and Maejima districts of Nagano city. It is nicknamed the "M-Wave" because of the design of its roof, which looks like a giant "M" against the backdrop of the Japanese Alps. The river Chikuma flows nearby.

1994 Golds: Men: Aleksandr Golubev, Russia (500m); Dan Jansen, United States (1000m); Johann Olav Koss, Norway (1500m); Johann Olav Koss, Norway (5000m); Johann Olav Koss, Norway. Women: Bonnie Blair, United States (500m); Bonnie Blair, United States (1000m); Emese Hunyady, Austria (1,500m); Svetlana Bazhanova, Russia (3000m); Claudia Pechstein, Germany (5000m).

KRT

Critical Moment: As they speed around the double track, centrifugal force pushes the skaters outward. To make the skating conditions and length the same for all competitors, skaters are required to race twice: once in the inner lane, and once in the outer lane.

How It Works: Speedskating is the fastest an individual can move under his own power, with speeds reaching as much as 40 miles per hour. In speedskating, the competitors skate against the clock, although they race in pairs, and use long, graceful and powerful strides around a 400-meter double track. They are required to change lanes in the back straightaway of each lap. The skater on the outside is considered to have the right of way.

Expect to see faster times than usual this year, and quite possibly a number of Olympic and world records. Already this season there have been 10 world records set because of the slapskate, a small but expensive mechanical device that has upended the sport and seems certain to monopolize the feet of those on the medal stands in Nagano. The device, a bolt-and-hinge mechanism that allows a skate blade to disconnect briefly from a skater's boot thereby prolonging the blade's contact with the ice and increasing the skater's pushing capacity, showed up in world-class

Photo Courtesy of Easton Sports

speedskating last fall on the feet of women from the Netherlands and quickly caught on among top males. As the blade comes back in contact with the heel of the boot, it makes a clacking sound, a distinct departure from the whispering brush of traditional skates.

"Instead of just having the toe part of your skate working on the ice, you have the whole blade to work with," says KC Boutiette of the U.S. team. "It means your motion is more economical and you go faster."

In order to profit as much as possible from each` stride, skaters crouch so that their stomachs and thighs are almost touching. In addition, they wear special skintight, hooded suits, which cover the skater from head to toe in one piece, to minimize wind resistance.

History: Skates probably were developed about 3,000 years ago in Scandinavia, and early skates were made of polished bone, wood and then metal. In the Netherlands, skating served as a way to travel over the canals in winter, and iron-bladed skates were recorded there as early as 1250.

Holland is considered the birthplace of modern speed skating, and the Dutch skating association is the forerunner of the International Skating Union (ISU).

By the 18th century, the popularity of speedskating had spread across northern Europe. The first known speedskating club was the Skating Club of Edinburgh, in Scotland, and the first speedskating competition is thought to be a 15-mile race held in England in 1763. Shortly thereafter, competitions sprang up across northern Europe, with the skaters, mostly made up of laborers, being judged by the aristocrats, who themselves were partial to the sport of figure skating.

In the United States, the first speedskating club was started in Philadelphia in 1849. The sport was adopted in New York and Washington shortly thereafter. In 1850, E.W. Bushnell of Philadelphia made the first all-steel skate, which did not require frequent sharpening, revolutionizing the sport.

The first world championship was held in the Netherlands in 1889, and brought together the Dutch, Russian, American and English champions. Long-track speedskating, known in current skating circles as "speed" to distinguish it from short track, has been a part of the Olympic program since the first Winter Games in Chamonix Mont-Blanc in 1924. Originally only men participated, but women's events were included in the 1960 Squaw Valley Games.

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Speedskater Charles Jewtraw (pictured) of Lake Placid, N.Y., won the first gold medal for the United States in the Winter Olympics on Jan. 26, 1924, taking the gold in the 500. Known for his explosive first 100 yards, Jewtraw's best 100 yards was 9.4 seconds, still a good time by today's standards.

Speedskating has produced more U.S. Olympic medals than any other sport, including the five golds won by Eric Heiden at the 1980 Games, and the six won by Bonnie Blair, who has won more than Olympic medals than any other American woman.

Schedule
Event	Date	Time (ET)
Men's 5000	Sunday, Feb. 8	1 a.m.
Men's 500m (prelim)	Monday, Feb. 9	2:30 a.m.
Men's 500m (final)	Tuesday, Feb. 10	2:30 a.m.
Women's 3000	Wednesday, Feb. 11	1 a.m.
Men's 1500	Thursday, Feb. 12	1 a.m.
Women's 500m (prelim)	Friday, Feb. 13	2:30 a.m.
Women's 500m (final)	Saturday, Feb. 14	2:30 a.m.
Men's 1000m	Sunday, Feb. 15	1 a.m.
Women's 1500m	Monday, Feb. 16	1 a.m.
Men's 10,000m	Tuesday, Feb. 17	1 a.m.
Women's 1000m	Thursday, Feb. 19	1 a.m.
Women's 5000m	Friday, Feb. 20	1 a.m.

U.S. Outlook: For the first time since 1984, the U.S. men's team is without Dan Jansen, who retired after the 1994 Games. But with KC Boutiette and Casey FitzRandolph, the American men do have a shot at some medals.

Boutiette was second in the 1,500 meters at the 1997 World Championships, and he recently bettered the American record in the 5,000 meters.

FitzRandolph, who excels in the sprints, recently broke the American record in the 1,000 meters. He won six medals in 1996-97 World Cup competition.

For the women, Chris Witty is coming off a tremendous World Cup season in which she claimed nine medals and is heating up as the Nagano Games approach. On Nov. 23, Witty set a world record in the 1,000 meters. She also is making progress at 1,500 meters, a distance at which she hasn't competed since 1996.

Witty is joined on the U.S. team by Kirstin Holum (two 1996-97 World Cup medals) and Becky Sundstrom (one). Holum, the daughter of four-time U.S. Olympic medalist Dianne Holum, is the American record holder in the 3,000 and 5,000 meters.

Others to Watch: With Jansen and Norway's Johann Olav Koss retired, the strongest competitors in the men's long-track competition appear to be three Japanese sprinters — Hioyasu Shimizu in the 500 and Yasunori Miyabe and Manabu Horii in the 1,000. Also contending in the sprints will be Jan Bos of the Netherlands, while returning Olympians Rintje Titsma and Ids Postma will contend at the longer distances.

The biggest names in women's long-track skating used to be Blair and China's Ye Qiaobo. But they've both retired, leaving the stage to Germany's Gunda Niemann, who did well at both Albertville and Lillehammer but was overshadowed by Blair.

Now Niemann is the star, and she is expected to dominate in the longer distances — 3,000 and 5,000 meters. Already this season she has set a new world record at 3000 meters. Teammate Claudia Pechstein, who won the 5,000-meter gold at Lillehammer, will push Niemann, as will Tonny de Jong of the Netherlands and Svetlana Bazhanova of Russia. The shorter events will feature Ye Qiaobo's successor on the Chinese team, Xue Ruihong.

Looking Back at Lillehammer: Blair won two gold medals, bringing her Olympic total to five, the most for an American athlete in the history of the Winter Olympics. Norwegian Johann Olav Koss thrilled the home crowd with three gold medals in the 1,500m, 5,000m and the 10,000m, all in world-record time. But it was Jansen who had the Games' most emotional moment, overcoming six years of frustration to win gold in the 1,000 meters. Earlier, Jansen slipped on the last turn in the 500m and finished eighth.

Gold Medalists:

Trivia: 1. Who set three world records at the 1994 Games?
2. How many gold medals did Dan Jansen win?
3. How long is a long-track speed skating oval?
Answers