Speed skating
Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long-track speed skating, short-track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. In the Olympic Games, long-track speed skating is usually referred to as just "speed skating", while short-track speed skating is known as "short track". The International Skating Union, the governing body of competitive ice sports, refers to long track as "speed skating" and short track as "short track skating". Long track speed skating takes place on a 400m ice track, while short track takes place on a 111m track.
An international federation was founded in 1892, the first for any winter sport. The sport enjoys large popularity in the Netherlands, Norway and South Korea. There are top international rinks in a number of other countries, including Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Belarus and Poland. A World Cup circuit is held with events in those countries plus two events in the Thialf ice hall in Heerenveen, Netherlands.
Overview
The standard rink for long track is 400 meters long, but tracks of 200, 250 and 333 meters are used occasionally. It is one of two Olympic forms of the sport and the one with the longer history.ISU rules allow some leeway in the size and radius of curves.
Short track speed skating takes place on a smaller rink, normally the size of an ice hockey rink, on a 111.12 m oval track. Distances are shorter than in long-track racing, with the longest Olympic individual race being 1500 meters. Events are usually held with a knockout format, with the best two in heats of four or five qualifying for the final race, where medals are awarded. Disqualifications and falls are not uncommon.
There are variations on the mass-start races. In the regulations of roller sports, eight different types of mass starts are described. Among them are elimination races, where one or more competitors are eliminated at fixed points during the course; simple distance races, which may include preliminary races; endurance races with time limits instead of a fixed distance; points races; and individual pursuits.
Races usually have rules about disqualification if an opponent is unfairly hindered; these rules vary between the disciplines. In long track speed skating, almost any infringement on the pairmate is punished, though skaters are permitted to change from the inner to the outer lane out of the final curve if they are not able to hold the inner curve, as long as they are not interfering with the other skater. In mass-start races, skaters will usually be allowed some physical contact.
Team races are also held; in long track speed skating, the only team race at the highest level of competition is the team pursuit, though athletics-style relay races are held at children's competitions. Relay races are also held in short track and inline competitions, but here exchanges may take place at any time during the race, though exchanges may be banned during the last couple of laps.
Most speed skating races are held on an oval course, but there are exceptions. Oval sizes vary; in short track speed skating, the rink must be an oval of 111.12 metres, while long track speed skating uses a similarly standardized 400 m rink. Inline skating rinks are between 125 and 400 metres, though banked tracks can only be 250 metres long. Inline skating can also be held on closed road courses between 400 and 1,000 metres, as well as open-road competitions where starting and finishing lines do not coincide. This is also a feature of outdoor marathons.
In the Netherlands, marathon competitions may be held on natural ice on canals, and bodies of water such as lakes and rivers, but may also be held on artificially frozen 400 m tracks, with skaters circling the track 100 times, for example.
History
The origins of speed skating date back over a millennium in the North of Europe, especially Scandinavia and the Netherlands, where the natives added bones to their shoes and used them to travel on frozen rivers, canals and lakes. Later, in Norway, King Eystein Magnusson, later King Eystein I of Norway, boasts of his skills racing on bone skates, so called "ice legs".File:Kortebaanwedstrijd in Hindelopen.jpg|thumb|Speed skating match on the Zuiderzee near Hindeloopen, Netherlands, in 1828However, skating and speed skating was not limited to the Netherlands and Scandinavia; in 1592, a Scotsman designed a skate with an iron blade. It was iron-bladed skates that led to the spread of skating and, in particular, speed skating.
By 1642, the first known skating club, The Skating Club of Edinburgh, was born, and, in 1763, the first speed skating race known in any detail was held from Wisbech to Whittlesey on the Fens in England for a prize sum of 20 guineas, won by John Lamb of Wisbech.
While in the Netherlands, people began touring the waterways connecting the 11 cities of Friesland, a challenge which eventually led to the Elfstedentocht.
The first known speed skating competition for women was in Heerenveen, the Netherlands from 1 to 2 February 1805. 130 women competed in a knockout-style competition on a frozen canal in front of a crowd that reportedly numbered 10,000 or more. The winner was Trijntje Pieters Westra, a twenty-year-old farmer's daughter from Poppingawier.
By 1851, North Americans had discovered a love of the sport, and the all-steel blade was later developed there. In Norway speed skating also became popular, as there was a huge interest in the 1885 speed skating race at Frognerkilen between Axel Paulsen and Renke van der Zee.
The Netherlands came back to the fore in 1889 with the organization of the first world championships. The ISU was also born in the Netherlands in 1892.
By the start of the 20th century, skating and speed skating had come into its own as a major popular sporting activity.
ISU development
Organized races on ice skates developed in the 19th century. Norwegian clubs hosted competitions from 1863, with races in Christiania drawing five-digit crowds. In 1884, the Norwegian Axel Paulsen was named Amateur Champion Skater of the World after winning competitions in the United States. Five years later, a sports club in Amsterdam held an ice-skating event they called a world championship, with participants from Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as the host country. The Internationale Eislauf Vereinigung, now known as the International Skating Union, was founded at a meeting of 15 national representatives in Scheveningen in 1892, the first international winter sports federation. The Nederlandse Schaatsrijderbond was founded in 1882 and organised the world championships of 1890 and 1891. Competitions were held around tracks of varying lengths—the 1885 match between Axel Paulsen and Remke van der Zee was skated on a track of 6/7 mile —but the 400 metre track was standardised by the ISU in 1892, along with the standard distances for world championships, 500 m, 1500 m, 5000 m and 10,000 m. Skaters started in pairs, each to their own lane, and changed lanes for every lap to ensure that each skater completed the same distance. This is what is now known as long track speed skating. Competitions were exclusively for amateur skaters, which was enforced. Peter Sinnerud was disqualified for professionalism in 1904 and lost his world title.Long track world records were first registered in imperial distances and since 1880 in metrical distances. The latter ones improved rapidly since their adoption as standard distances by the ISU, with Jaap Eden lowering the world 5000-metre record by half a minute during the Hamar European Championships in 1894. However, the record stood for 17 years, and it took over 50 years to lower it by further half a minute.
Elfstedentocht
The Elfstedentocht was organized as a competition in 1909 and has been held at irregular intervals, whenever the ice on the course is deemed good enough. Other outdoor races developed later, with Friesland in the northern Netherlands hosting a race in 1917, but the Dutch natural ice conditions have rarely been conducive to skating. The Elfstedentocht has been held 15 times in the nearly 100 years since 1909, and, before artificial ice was available in 1962, national championships had been held in 25 of the years between 1887, when the first championship was held in Slikkerveer, and 1961. Since artificial ice became common in the Netherlands, Dutch speed skaters have been among the world top in long track ice skating and marathon skating. Another solution to still be able to skate marathons on natural ice became the Alternative Elfstedentocht. The Alternative Elfstedentocht races take part in other countries, such as Austria, Finland or Canada, and all top marathon skaters, as well as thousands of recreative skaters, travel from the Netherlands to the location where the race is held. According to the NRC Handelsblad journalist Jaap Bloembergen, the country "takes a carnival look" during international skating championships.Olympic Games
At the 1914 Olympic Congress, the delegates agreed to include ice speed skating in the 1916 Olympics, after figure skating had featured in the 1908 Olympics. However, World War I put an end to the plans of Olympic competition, and it was not until the winter sports week in Chamonix in 1924—retroactively awarded Olympic status—that ice speed skating reached the Olympic programme. Charles Jewtraw from Lake Placid, New York, won the first Olympic gold medal, though several Norwegians in attendance claimed Oskar Olsen had clocked a better time. Timing issues on the 500 were a problem within the sport until electronic clocks arrived in the 1960s; during the 1936 Olympic 500–metre race, it was suggested that Ivar Ballangrud's 500-metre time was almost a second too good. Finland won the remaining four gold medals at the 1924 Games, with Clas Thunberg winning 1,500 metres, 5,000 metres, and allround. It was the first and only time an allround Olympic gold medal has been awarded in speed skating. Speed Skating is also a sport in today's Olympics.Norwegian and Finnish skaters won all the gold medals in world championships between the world wars, with Latvians and Austrians visiting the podium in the European Championships. However, North American races were usually conducted pack-style, similar to the marathon races in the Netherlands, but the Olympic races were to be held over the four ISU-approved distances. The ISU approved the suggestion that the speed skating at the 1932 Winter Olympics should be held as pack-style races, and Americans won all four gold medals. Canada won five medals, all silver and bronze, while defending World Champion Clas Thunberg stayed at home, protesting against this form of racing. At the World Championships held immediately after the games, without the American champions, Norwegian racers won all four distances and occupied the three top spots in the allround standings.
Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, and Japanese skating leaders protested to the USOC, condemning the manner of competition and expressing the wish that mass-start races were never to be held again at the Olympics. However, the ISU adopted the short track speed skating branch, with mass-start races on shorter tracks, in 1967, arranged international competitions from 1976, and brought them back to the Olympics in 1992.