Oscar Mathisen
Speedskating - Oscar Diary

A 100 years ago today, the visiting skaters at Davos jumped out of bed to peek out of the windows, hoping for an improvement in the weather since yesterday. The scene they saw was one of whirling snowflakes and grey sky, but still it seemed a little lighter than the day before.

The record track at least was ready, and the ice seemed fast today. In the 1500m every skater except Sæterhaug again improved their personal best times. Martin after all had 2.23.4 from 1908 to improve upon, not an easy deal. Paired with Johansen, Oscar set up a good pace from the start. During the race he had no idea of his progress, but he mustered all his 1500m experience and distributed his efforts well, putting in some strong strokes on the last straight, almost 80 meters ahead of his pairmate. The year before he had missed the record by a margin of only a fifth of a second, the smallest possible. But now he had succeeded by exactly the same margin, and applause and congratulations in many tongues sounded over the arena. With this he improved his lead in Adelskalenderen even more, and with the ominous-looking sum of 197.777 now was more than one and a half point ahead of Østlund. Johansen improved his pb with 3 seconds and climbed to 17th place, now in front of Vikander as well. With this, Oscar had the three all time best times in the 1500m: 2.20,6, 2.20,8 and 2.21,0, and evidently an unmatched expertise in the distance.

1500m
1.Oscar Mathisen          2.20.6 WR
2.Martin Sæterhaug        2.25.4
3.Magnus Johansen         2.28.6 pb
4.Wyndout Hendrik Taconis 2.37.8 pb
5.Roy Weibel              2.41.8 pb
6.Jac P de Koning         2.47.4 pb
7.Eugen H Freytag         2.52.0 pb
8.Charles Sabouret        2.53.8 pb
9.Adrian Maucourt         3.01.8 pb
10.Guy Breteau            3.05.4 pb

class 2:
1.Max Kniel         2.47.2 pb
2.Fredrick C Morely 2.48.4 pb
3.Freytag           2.49.2 pb
4.Cornel Hoffmann   3.04.4 pb

Overall
1.Mathisen             3
2.Johansen             7
3.Taconis             12.5
4.Weibel og Sæterhaug 13
6.de Koning           18.5
7.Freytag             20
8.Sabouret            21
9.Maucourt            27
10.Breteau            30

The rink conditions deteriorated for the 10000m. The wind drained some energy from the skaters, and again it was difficult to clear the falling snow when there were people racing on the track. Oscar once again met his clubmate, and beat him soundly as before, lapping him in the end. He attacked the world record again, too, and probably was ahead of 17.50 for a while, but this time he had to give in. None of the Norwegians improved their pbs this time, but all the foreigners did, and all of them except the home skater Weibel were new entries in Adelskalenderen as well, the Dutchman Taconis the best placed of them in 84th.

10000m
1.Mathisen  18.17.4
2.Sæterhaug 18.56.4
3.Johansen  19.02.4
4.Taconis   19.42.0 pb
5.de Koning 20.34.4 pb
6.Weibel    20.58.2 pb
7.Sabouret  21.16.4 pb
8.Freytag   21.44.4 pb
9.Maucourt  22.57.0 pb
10.Breteau  24.07.8 pb

Overall
1.Mathisen             4
2.Johansen            10
3.Sæterhaug           15
4.Taconis             16.5
5.Weibel              19
6.de Koning           23.5
7.Freytag og Sabouret 28
9.Maucourt            36
10.Breteau            40

After a hearty banquet with many multilingual toasts for the Norwegians, the skaters were informed that they didn’t need to prepare for tomorrow’s scheduled train journey to Klagenfurt after all. The European Championship could not be arranged on Tuesday and Wednesday as planned, and now was postponed until next weekend, hoping for colder weather.

Back home in Kristiania the promising Henning Olsen stole the headlines with an excellent 500m in 47,1 at Bislett. Apparently it would fall on him to captain the Kristiania team for the cup match against Stockholm, as Oscar and Magnus Johansen would be busy for the weekend. But could this weakened team be a match for the new and upcoming Swedish one?