U.S. long-track speedskating struggles continue
GANGNEUNG, South Korea – A Dutch podium sweep and a disappointed American.
Sound familiar?
The Olympic long-track speedskating competition picked up Saturday night where it left off four years ago, with skaters from the Netherlands sweeping the medals in the women’s 3,000 meters, the first race of the Pyeongchang Games.
Carlijn Achtereekte won the gold in 3 minutes, 59.21 seconds on the Gangneung Oval, edging countrywoman Ireen Wust, a two-time gold medal winner in the race (2006, 2014).
Wust was trying to join Germany’s Claudia Pechstein (5,000 meters) and Bonnie Blair (500) as the only women to win the same Olympic race three times. Instead, she settled for the silver in 3:59.29. It was her record-tying ninth Olympic speedskating medal.
Antoinette de Jong completed the Dutch sweep in 4:00.02.
Carlijn Schoutens, the United States’ lone entry, finished a disappointing 22nd of 24 competitors in 4:15.60. Her time was about 7 seconds off her best on a sea-level oval this season and far off her personal best of 4:05.54.
“I was expecting a little bit faster time for myself,” Schoutens said. “My goal was to have my best race of the season on a sea-level track and I fell short of that a little bit. So I’m still processing where exactly we have to look for the answer. My first reaction, definitely a little bit disappointed.”
At the 2014 Sochi Games, the Netherlands won 23 long-track medals and the United States was shut out for the first time in 30 years. U.S. Speedskating analyzed every aspect of its skaters’ training, equipment and preparation and made several substantial changes, including holding the Olympic trials at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee instead of Salt Lake City, where they’d been held since 2002.
The results from the first race were not encouraging.
Schoutens, who was born in Trenton, N.J., but spent her formative years in the Netherlands, where she learned to skate, was perplexed by her slow time. After a first lap of 32.39 seconds, each succeeding lap was slower than the one before it; she went 34.97 on the last lap.
“A little bit faster than that, I thought I was capable of,” she said. “I’ve already done a 4:08 on a sea-level track this year and we had a really good sea-level camp (in Milwaukee) where I tried to nail those lap times and I felt like that’s what I was about to do.
“But today it was definitely hard to keep the pace going, so I’m going to have to analyze it a little bit and see how to fix it.”
Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic, who won the 3,000 at the 2010 Vancouver Games and took silver in Sochi, finished fourth.
Pechstein, 45, finished ninth. She is the only speedskater to win a medal at five different Winter Games.
“She definitely has a pristine technique and she must have a really good work ethic, as well,” said Schoutens, 23, who was not yet born when Pechstein made her Olympic debut. “I don’t know her personally but she must have something that makes her very successful, for sure.”
The men’s 5,000 meters will be held Sunday and Emery Lehman, the United States’ lone entry, is not expected to win a medal.
That means the Americans’ first chance to end their medal drought likely will come Monday, when Brittany Bowe and Heather Bergsma race in the women’s 1,500.