Speedskaters see something to clap about
GANGNEUNG, South Korea – If you’re just looking at podium finishes, you see one bronze medal for the U.S. long-track speedskating team at the Pyeongchang Olympics and conclude this wasn’t much better than Sochi.
True, the Americans narrowly avoided a shutout for the second consecutive Winter Games, with the women’s pursuit team barely hanging on to finish third.
But Team USA compiled 10 other top-10 finishes at the Gangneung Oval and the vibe was much more positive than it was four years ago, when one poor performance after another shattered the skaters’ confidence and sucked the energy out of the team.
“Honestly, we are pleased with what we saw,” said Guy Thibault, the highperformance director for U.S. Speedskating. “Yes, we missed a few. We come back with two medals (including one in short track). We were hoping for more.
“Looking at where we were, with all the changes made from the Sochi lesson, totally different attitude, totally different atmosphere with the team. Everybody came here to skate their best.”
By and large, they did, but it wasn’t quite good enough to get them on the podium.
Joey Mantia of Ocala, Fla., was a case in point Saturday in the men’s mass start, a new Olympic event and the final long-track race of these Games. He went into the race as the reigning world champion and with his inline background – he won a record 28 world titles – was a medal favorite in the 16-lap pack-style race.
Coming off a surprising fourth-place finish in the 1,000 meters on Friday, Mantia made it through his semifinal to the 16-skater final but couldn’t close the deal.
He actually crossed the finish line fourth, just 0.97 of a second out of third, but because he didn’t accumulate points by leading any of the three intermediate sprint laps in the semi or final, he wound up in ninth place.
Had he crossed the line third, he wouldn’t have needed the sprint points and would have won the bronze medal.
“He was going for the medal,” Thibault said. “He could have been fourth by points easily but he was going for the medal. He missed it by very little.”
Mantia said his legs started cramping with three laps to go, something that had never happened to him in a speedskating race, though he said it had happened in inline marathons.
“Three laps to go I tried to push to keep up with (Korea’s Seung-Hoon) Lee on the inside and my legs actually just cramped,” he said. “I was just like, ‘I don’t know, man, I don’t know.’ I tried to get back in it but I didn’t hop on those (leaders) early enough. Ultimately, I didn’t train hard enough or specific enough for this event.”
Lee won the gold medal, Bart Swings of Belgium won the silver and Koen Verweij of the Netherlands won the bronze, giving the Dutch their 16th long-track medal of these Games. In Sochi, they won 23.
Brian Hansen of Glenview, Ill., who has trained extensively at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee, did not make it out of the semifinals. Had he done so, Mantia could have drafted behind him in the final and might have had a bit more left for the final sprint.
“Ultimately, it was way better than Sochi,” Mantia said. “I went home from Sochi with my head hanging low and tail between my legs, so to speak. Here, I’m very proud of the fourth place yesterday, fourth across the line in the mass start. One more spot up and I would have had a medal.”
Mantia said he was leaning toward coming back for four more years. “I’m still hungry for a medal,” he said. In the women’s mass start, Heather Bergsma of High Point, N.C., and Mia Manganello of Crestview, Fla., made it through the semifinals but finished 11th and 15th, respectively.
Bergsma drafted behind Manganello for most of the final, until Manganello had nothing left and coasted round the oval for the final lap, hands on her knees. But Bergsma wasn’t strong enough to sprint with the leaders, either.
“We had a good plan,” she said. “There’s some fast girls out there.”
Nana Takagi of Japan won the gold medal, Bo-Reum Kim of Korea took the silver and Irene Schouten of the Netherlands won the bronze.
“We’re going to need to look at how can we make those fourth (place-finishes) medals next time, or gold next time,” Thibault said. “That’s the next step we need to do. We know the things we did right; we have to see what we could have done better.”