50 Fun Facts About Speed Skating

How long is a standard long-track speed skating oval?

The ISU standardised the distance in 1892, along with the classic championship distances of 500, 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 metres.

A short-track speed skating oval measures approximately how long?

It fits inside an ice hockey rink, which is one reason the discipline is growing faster than long track.

In which direction are speed skating races run?

In long track, skaters must swap lanes every lap so both cover the same distance; the skater moving to the inside has right of way.

The International Skating Union, founded in 1892, was the first international federation for what?

Fifteen national representatives founded it at Scheveningen in the Netherlands.

The first speed skating race known in any detail was held in 1763 on the Fens of which country?

John Lamb of Wisbech won 20 guineas racing to Whittlesey; a Scot had designed the first iron-bladed skate back in 1592.

Which Dutch town, now speed skating's spiritual home, hosted the first known women's race in 1805?

Some 130 women raced on a frozen canal before a crowd of 10,000, and a 20-year-old farmer's daughter won.

The Thialf arena, the Netherlands' great skating temple, is named after a character from which mythology?

Thialfi was Thor's servant, who had to race a giant; the indoor oval opened in 1986 and will host the 2030 Olympic speed skating.

Speed skating first appeared at the Olympics in which year?

The Chamonix winter sports week was retroactively declared the first Winter Olympics and included five skating events.

Who won the first Olympic speed skating gold medal, in the 500 m at Chamonix?

The American from Lake Placid edged out Norwegians who claimed one of their own had clocked a better time; timing stayed unreliable until electronic clocks arrived decades later.

Finland's Clas Thunberg is the only person ever to win Olympic gold in which speed skating event?

It was awarded only at the first Winter Games; Thunberg remains the oldest speed skating champion, winning at 34.

The 1932 Lake Placid Olympics used which controversial race format, letting the hosts win all four golds?

World champion Clas Thunberg stayed home in protest, and European nations demanded that mass starts never return to the Games.

Women's speed skating events were added to the Winter Olympics in which year?

The Squaw Valley Games also introduced artificial ice; the 1956 races on Lake Misurina were the last on natural ice.

Which Soviet skater was the first to win four individual golds at one Winter Games, in 1964?

She swept all four distances at Innsbruck and finished her career with six golds, a total later matched by Ireen Wüst.

Which Dutch skater won three golds at Sapporo in 1972, missing a fourth only by falling in the 500 m?

He also won three straight world all-round titles and helped found a short-lived professional league in 1972.

Eric Heiden won how many individual gold medals at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics?

No other athlete has ever won as many individual golds at one Winter Games; only the Soviet Union and East Germany won more golds than he did.

After skating, Eric Heiden earned a medical degree from Stanford and became what?

He followed his father into the specialty, after a spell as a professional cyclist.

Eric Heiden was born and raised in which US city?

His sister Beth was also a champion skater and cyclist, and the pair helped create a warming hut for local children.

Bonnie Blair won all of her Olympic gold medals in which two distances?

In 1994 she became the first woman to break 39 seconds for 500 m, and her cheering family and friends were nicknamed the 'Blair Bunch'.

Bonnie Blair grew up in which Illinois city, whose police association helped fund her training in Europe?

She competed at four Olympics and shared Sports Illustrated's 1994 Sportsman of the Year honour with Johann Olav Koss.

Dan Jansen's Olympic story is famous for what happening on the morning of his 500 m race in 1988?

He fell in that race and again in the 1,000 m; he finally won gold in his last race, the 1,000 m at Lillehammer in 1994.

Norway's Johann Olav Koss won three golds at the 1994 Lillehammer Games and later founded which charity?

He set world records in all three wins, then trained as a doctor in Australia before launching the children's organisation in 2000.

The clap skate has its blade attached to the boot by what?

The heel lifts off the blade on every stroke, keeping the steel on the ice longer; a similar idea was patented back in 1894.

The modern clap skate was developed at a university in which city?

Gerrit Jan van Ingen Schenau built his first prototype in 1980; the Dutch women's team adopted it in 1996-97 and world records tumbled.

The 1998 Winter Olympics, where clap skates produced a flood of world records, were held in which city?

Tonny de Jong had become the first European all-round champion on clap skates the previous year, beating the world champion Gunda Niemann.

The Elfstedentocht is a roughly 200 km skating tour visiting eleven cities in which Dutch province?

It has been held only three times in the last 50 years, whenever the natural ice is thick enough.

The Elfstedentocht was last held in which year?

A 2012 cold snap had hotels booked for two million visitors, but the ice never got thick enough.

The 1963 Elfstedentocht, nicknamed 'the hell of '63', saw how many of its 10,000 starters finish?

Winner Reinier Paping was snow-blind by the finish and became a national hero.

Which future Dutch king completed the 1986 Elfstedentocht under the pseudonym 'W. A. van Buren'?

Van Buren is a traditional incognito surname of the Dutch royal house.

What Frisian-derived name is given to spots where Elfstedentocht skaters must walk on their skates?

From the West Frisian klúnje, to run on skates over a carpet; ice has even been transplanted to shore up weak stretches under bridges.

Short-track speed skating became a full Olympic sport in which year?

It had been a demonstration event at Calgary in 1988; Albertville had just four short-track events.

What happened on the last corner to give Australia's Steven Bradbury 2002 short-track gold?

The 50-1 outsider had cruised at the back on his coach's advice, becoming the first Southern Hemisphere athlete to win Winter Olympic gold.

How many Olympic medals did Apolo Anton Ohno win, then a record for an American Winter Olympian?

Two golds, two silvers and four bronzes; he also won the 2007 season of Dancing with the Stars.

Which South Korean skater's disqualification gave Ohno 2002 gold in the 1,500 m?

Ohno threw up his arms as if blocked on the last lap; the Australian referee James Hewish awarded him the race.

Apolo Ohno was raised by his Japanese-born father in which US city?

He started as a national inline skating champion before switching to the ice.

Ireen Wüst holds the record for most Olympic medals by a speed skater with how many?

She won her sixth gold at Beijing 2022 and became the first athlete to win individual gold at five different Olympics.

At which 2006 Olympics did 19-year-old Ireen Wüst become the Netherlands' youngest Winter champion?

She was made a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion within weeks.

Sven Kramer won an all-time record how many World All-round Championships?

He also collected 21 golds at the World Single Distance Championships and three straight Olympic 5,000 m titles.

Sven Kramer lost a certain 10,000 m gold at Vancouver 2010 when he was disqualified for what?

His coach Gerard Kemkers shouted the wrong instruction near the end of the race.

Sven Kramer won Olympic gold in the 5,000 m at three consecutive Games, the last of them where?

He was knighted in the Order of the Netherlands Lion after the first, in Vancouver.

Germany's Claudia Pechstein was banned for two years in 2009 on the basis of what?

The ISU cited fluctuating reticulocyte levels; she went on to compete at a record number of Winter Games for a woman, carrying Germany's flag in 2022.

Claudia Pechstein, a multiple Olympic champion, holds what rank in the German Federal Police?

She trains at the force's sports centre in Bad Endorf and was born in East Berlin.

Which Chicago-born skater was the first man to defend the Olympic 1,000 m title, in Vancouver?

He had earlier become the first African-American to make a US Olympic speed skating team.

Sweden's Nils van der Poel gave a 2022 Olympic gold medal to which Chinese political prisoner?

He won the 5,000 m and 10,000 m in Beijing, then published his entire training manifesto for free.

Nils van der Poel's 2021 world title was Sweden's first speed skating world gold in how many years?

He had spent 2018-19 doing the basic ranger course with the Swedish Army before returning to the ice.

The team pursuit was added to the Olympic speed skating programme at which Games?

Teams of three race on the inner lane from opposite sides of the track, and overtaking the rival team wins outright.

In a long-track team pursuit, the team's time is taken when which skater crosses the line?

Men race 8 laps and women 6; in the Olympic knockout format, overtaking the other team wins the race outright.

Long-track skaters wear an aerodynamic hood; what do short-trackers wear on their heads instead?

Falls are common in mass-start racing, so short-trackers also need cut-proof gloves, shin pads and a neck guard.

Between 1971 and 2009, average speed in the men's 1,500 m rose from 45 km/h to roughly what?

Skinsuits, indoor ovals and clap skates all played a part.

How long does a long-track referee wait between saying 'Ready' and firing the starting shot?

Some researchers argue the variable delay disadvantages skaters who wait longest, because of the alerting effect.

Which two high-altitude indoor rinks overtook Thialf as the 'fastest ice in the world' after 1988?

Thin air at altitude means less drag on top of the climate-controlled ice.