Speed Skating

Speed skaters are amazing athletes who make flying around a sheet of ice, including the tight corners, seem effortless. It is the sport that attracts some of the most colourful and noisy spectators at the Games – especially the Scandinavians.

Generally speaking the Europeans hold the upper-hand in the distance events and the north Americans are more of a threat in the shorter races.

Speed skating made its debut on the Olympic program at the first Games at Chamonix 1924 and has remained on the program ever since.

The Netherlands is the birthplace of speed skating with the first known skating competition thought to have been held in 1676. Competitions sprung up across the northern part of Europe shortly after, but the first official speed skating events were not held until 1863 in Oslo, Norway.

Australia and Speed Skating

There are four athletes (3 men and 1 women) aiming to achieve qualification in long track speed skating for the Games. Australia has never been represented by a female at the Winter Olympics, and Lillehammer 1994 was the last time Australia qualified a speed skater for the Games.

Richard Goerlitz represented Australia at the 1998 Games as a short track skater, Ben Southee is a former national short track rep and the other three athletes - Sophie Muir, Josh Lose and Daniel Greig – are all former in-line skaters.

Kenneth Kennedy, the first Australian Winter Olympian, was the first athlete to represent Australia in speed skating at Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936. He competed in the 500m, 1500m and 5000m, placing 29th, 33rd and 33rd respectively.

In 1952, the brilliant reign of the colourful character Colin Hickey began. He sold newspapers to save enough money to buy his first pair of skates and took a ship to Norway at the age of 18 to train in the speed skating hub. He represented Australia at three consecutive Games; Oslo 1952, Cortina D’Ampezzo 1956 and Squaw Valley 1960. In 1956 he achieved Australia’s best Olympic result in the 500m and 1500m, placing 7th in both events.

Australia’s best performance came from Colin Coates, a speed skater who had received training from Hickey. At Innsbruck 1976, he finished 6th in the 10,000m. He also finished 8th in the 1500m, 10th in the 5000m, 11th in the 1000m and 23rd in the 500m. He was then 29, competing in his third Olympics. He went on to represent Australia a record six times by Calgary 1988, capping a twenty year Olympic career with his fastest 10,000 metres ever.

Competition Format / Events

Speed skating consists of 12 events, which along with cross-country is the most number of events per sport at the Games. They are the 500m, 1000m, 1500m, 5000m for both men and women, 10000m for men, 3000m for women and team pursuit for men and women.

Speed skating is held on a 400m oval rink with skaters racing in lanes and in pairs.

Individual Events
In the individual events, skaters compete in pairs for the best time. Skaters are ranked according to their World Cup or World Championship results during the season and are then placed in one of four groups from which the pairs are drawn.

If there is an odd number of skaters, the first drawn skater competes alone in the first race. Only the 500-metre race has two rounds, with skaters alternating lanes for each round. For the second round,
skaters are ranked according to the results of the first round. The skater with the best overall time from both rounds is the winner.

The pairs racing features a crossover each lap in which racers change lanes, hence eliminating the advantage of drawing an inside berth. As you would expect, strict rules oversee these crossovers to ensure there is no interference. Turns are also common areas for interference. A skater who is interfered with during the race receives the option to skate the distance again.

Team Pursuit Event
In team pursuit, each team has three skaters on the ice concurrently. Two teams start at the same time from opposite positions on the oval. The ladies race six laps and the men race eight laps (following the demarcation of the inner competition lane).

The team pursuit competition consists of three rounds: quarter-final races, semifinal races and four final races (A, B, C and D). While racing, a team consists of three athletes but a country may compose their pursuit teams differently for the different rounds. A maximum of four different skaters for the complete set of races can be used.

The four teams that win the quarter-final races, advance to the semifinals. The remaining teams advance to finals C and D.

The semifinal races are organised according to the rank of the quarter-final races.  The final D race is between the two slowest losers from the quarter-finals to determine the 7th and 8th rankings. The final C race is between the two fastest losers from the quarter-finals to determine the 5th and 6th rankings. The final B race is between the two losing teams from the semifinals to determine the 3rd (bronze) and 4th rankings.

The final A race is between the two winning teams from the semifinals to determine the 1st (gold) and 2nd (silver) rankings.

Overtaking in team pursuit competition refers to the third positioned skater of one team overtaking the third positioned skater of the other team. If an overtaking occurs, “the race is over and the overtaking team is the winner of the heat.” An overtaken team in a heat of the quarter-finals receives an
invalid result and is considered the slowest of the losers in this phase.

Speed skating is one of the few Winter Olympic sports where time and speed records are significant (in that in many other sports, the variety of terrain and the conditions of the competition track render time or speed records meaningless).