NOT UP TO SPEED
U.S. speedskating results are setting off alarm bells
GANGNEUNG, South Korea - It was easy to shrug off the slower-than-expected times posted by Carlijn Schoutens and Emery Lehman in the first two long-track speedskating races at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Neither was expected to win a medal, and Lehman was a late addition in the men’s 5,000 meters.
But on Monday night, alarms went off at the Gangneung Oval.
Heather Bergsma of High Point, N.C., who won the 1,500 at the 2017 World Single-Distance Championships on this very oval and was considered a medal favorite going into the race, labored to the finish line and finished eighth.
An hour after she raced, she met with reporters in the media interview area. A person of few words even after podium finishes, Bergsma answered seven questions with a total of 72 words before being whisked away by a U.S. Speedskating representative. She appeared to be blinking back tears.
There are 11 races left, so it’s too early to label this Sochi 2.0.
But once again, the overriding theme is skaters from the Netherlands celebrating medals with their rowdy, orange-clad fans while the Americans search for answers. They don’t appear to
have the “snap” in their legs that is a mark of skaters peaking at the right time.
Dutch skaters Ireen Wust and Marrit Leenstra won the gold and bronze medals, respectively, giving the Netherlands six medals in three races – a podium sweep in the women’s 3k, gold in the men’s 5k and two more Monday.
Wust won the race in 1 minute 54.35 seconds. Miho Takagi of Japan, skating in the last pair with Bergsma, broke up what would have been another Dutch podium sweep by taking the silver in 1:54.55. That bumped Lotte van Beek to fourth.
Bergsma finished in 1:56.74 after a torturous last lap of 33.04 seconds. She’s more of a sprinter than a distance skater, so her final lap is a challenge. But this obviously was not good.
“Yeah, it was kind of a blur,” she said. “Yeah, it was just a hard last lap. It wasn’t my best race, so I can’t be super happy about it.”
The U.S. has not won the women’s 1,500 at the Olympic Games since 1972, when Dianne Holum took the gold. The team’s last medal in this event came in 2002, when Jennifer Rodriguez finished third.
If there was a bright spot for Team USA, it was the fifth-place finish by Brittany Bowe of Ocala, Fla. No American finished that high in Sochi four years ago.
Bowe missed almost the entire 2016’17 season with concussion symptoms, then came down with walking pneumonia in the fall. She said she didn’t start feeling strong and confident until the Olympic trials last month at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee.
Her time of 1:55.54 was her best on a sea-level track in two years.
“I feel great,” she said. “I feel superproud about that performance. I was able to execute what I wanted to execute. I was able to fight all the way to the end and leave everything out there on the ice. I’m really happy with it and I think it gives me great momentum going into the 1,000.”
Mia Manganello of Crestview, Fla., who went into the race having missed crucial pre-race training because she came down with a cold, finished 22nd in 1:59.93.
After being shut out in Sochi for the first time in 30 years, U.S. Speedskating made several significant changes in the team’s training program, equipment and Olympic preparation, including moving the trials from Salt Lake City to Milwaukee for the first time since 2002 and holding a two-week training camp at the Pettit Center just before the team left for Pyeongchang.
Bowe feels strongly that the U.S. is close to ending its medal drought. She predicted the team would win five medals in a pre-Games news conference.
“Every performance is going to speak for itself,” she said. “I think I can speak for the entire U.S. team, especially the U.S. sprint team, that we have done everything that we can do to prepare ourselves. And I know every single one of us going to the start line knows that we’ve done everything in our power to skate the best race possible.
“I think it’s a good sign that I skated the best 1,500 that I skated in a couple years, so I’m looking forward to seeing what the rest of Team USA is going to do.”
There’s still time. Just not a lot of it.