Four things to know about the first speed skating World Cup of the Olympic season

The first of four ISU speed skating (long track) World Cup events – doubling as Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 qualifiers – finished Sunday (14 November) after three days of competition, which started Friday (12 November) in Poland.

This is the first chance the speedsters had to check out the form of their competitors heading to the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, starting 4 February.

The event entry quotas for the individual distances will be determined via the Special Olympic Qualification Classification, which is based on results from the different ISU World Cup Speed Skating Competitions.

Here’s five takeaways from the event that took place at the Arena Lodowa in Tomaszów Mazowiecki.

Erin Jackson’s history-making medal

Former inline skater, Erin Jackson, appears to have made the right decision in switching to ice instead of roller derbies, which were her playground until a few months prior to PyeongChang 2018. Within four months of making the switch, she was headed to her first international event, the Olympic Winter Games, coming in a creditable 24th in her preferred 500m event.

The American not only won two gold medals at the first World Cup of the season – in the two 500m sprint races – but she also made history in becoming the first black woman to win a World Cup race. Jackson, who trains in Florida, pipped 2018 Olympic champion Kodaira Nao from Japan by just 0.13 seconds, clocking 37.613 seconds at the Arena Lodowa in Tomaszów Mazowiecki.

Jackson's team-mate, and fellow Florida resident, Brittany Bowe, who has had quite the challenging time even getting to this point, also added to the United States medal tally, with a gold in the women’s 1000m and silver in the second 1500m race.

Netherlands' last day bonanza

The Netherlands dominated the medal tally at both of the last two Olympic Winter Games – at Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018 – but got off to a slow start in the 2021-22 World Cup season opener. Winning ‘just’ three medals in the first two days – gold for Irene Schouten in the women’s 3000m, and bronze in both the men’s 5000m (Patrick Roest) and the women’s pursuit – they exploded into the consciousness on the last day.

The Nertherlands came away with a 1-2-3 shut out in the men’s 1000m via Hein Otterspeer, Thomas Krol and Kjeld Nuis, respectively. The other two medals came from Schouten, winning the women’s mass start race, followed by gold in the men’s team pursuit, the nation’s third top spot of the day.

Japan’s medal haul

Japan will be hoping that come Beijing 2022, they will pick up where they left off at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, in 2021, in which they achieved their best ever result. By their showing at the first World Cup event of the 2021-22 season, in which they collected the biggest medal haul across the three days with 10 medals, they could be on track.

The team won five medals in the 500m sprint event courtesy of Kodaira’s silver and bronze in the two women’s events, with Tatsuya Shinhama winning gold and silver in the two men’s events; Morishige Wataru also took bronze in the second Division A 500m event.

In the team pursuit, the women came second to the men’s third in the same discipline, while in the women’s 1000m Kodaira again made an appearance on the podium with a third-placed finish. Ahead of her on the rostrum was compatriot Takagi Miho, who also came away with gold from the women’s 1500m. Obayashi Masahito also won the men’s mass start title.

People’s Republic of China medallists

Ahead of their home Games, the People's Republic of China claimed two medallists in the World Cup season opener. In the men’s 1500m, Ning Zhongyan came second to Republic of Korea’s Kim Min Seok, who took his career first World Cup win in the distance.

“We’ve got the Olympics in my home country,” said Ning after the race. “From now on there is only 80 days left. So we will do all we can to perform well in Beijing.”

America’s Joey Mantia took bronze with the two dominant forces in the distance over the past few years, Dutchmen Nuis and Krol, fighting each other out of the medals, finishing 6th and 16th, respectively.

The second Chinese medalist was gold medal winner, Gao Tingyu.

For the full results, check here.

World Cup speed skating events doubling as Olympic qualifiers

19-21 November 2021 – Stavanger, Norway
3-5 December 2021 – Salt Lake Cit, USA
10-12 Dec 2021 – Calgary, Canada

*The World Cup Final takes place in Heerenveen, the Netherlands post Olympics from 12 -13 March 2022.