Statistics:

Current records.

A ranking of all the best speedskaters in history, based on a points system designed for a fair comparison between old and new speedskaters of the ISU era, as well as between European and non-European skaters and between men and women.

What is a championship without a 10000 m? Still open for new entries. E-mail me with yours!

Some well known statistics pages:

http://www.skatebase.com
http://w1.461.telia.com/~u46130641/other.htm (Evert Stenlund's speedskating pages)
http://www.skyggespill.no/skate/index.html (Terje Baard Hansen's speedskating pages)

Short speedskating histories for the various countries:
 

Australia	Austria	Belarus	Belgium
Bhutan	Bosnia-Herczegovina	Canada	China
Croatia	Czech republic	Denmark	Estonia
Finland	France	Georgia	Germany
Great Britain	Greece	Hungary	Iceland
India	Iran	Ireland	Italy
Japan	Kazakhstan	Latvia	Lithuania
Luxembourg	Mongolia	Netherlands	New Zealand
North Korea	Norway	Panama	Poland
Portugal	Rumania	Russia	Slovakia
South Africa	South Korea	Spain	Sweden
Switzerland	Taiwan	Ukraine	USA
Virgin Islands

RACING

Racing is something fundamentally human. We race on our feet, in the air, over snow and ice, on bikes, boats and in airplanes, we race our next door neighbours for the most advanced satellite receivers or the biggest and noisiest lawn mower, we race our colleagues at work for more money and influence, we race the next door superpower for more and bigger warheads on our nuclear weapons. It's "The Human Race", and every time we reach our goal as the ultimate winner, we feel an undescribable joy.

Bercause this is not a perfect world, there always has been a competition for the available resources on this planet, ever since the life forms started appearing in more than one copy at a time. The one who won the competition was a winner, the one who lost was a loser, and could risk oblivion in times without enough resources for all. Hence, the different species evolved more and more sophisticated genetic programs to arrive first, and as an extra incentive to use the necessary energy for the competition, this undescribable joy of winning, as a coveted reward for the victor.

We humans love competing, and our cries of victory have resounded in the deep forests, on naked beaches and billowing grassy plains as well as desolate reaches of snow and ice while the losers were lying still and bleeding behind us. We compete about areas of land with the lives of thousands of our fellow beings as the stakes, we compete about markets while millions are thrown into poverty, and we compete with the next door country about raising the most children, while the wilderness recedes and our own living environment is the great loser.

This is why someone invented a way to compete that didn't lead to so much death, pain, sorrow and suffering. The idea was to limit the freedom of action for the contestants with rules, designed to stop them from going for each other's throats right away and still enable them to enjoy the competition. This is called sport, or games. One of the advantages was that the loser often survived, and then, the fighting cocks (or hens) could do a replay to the merriment of the onlookers - maybe some day the loser even could become a winner?

RACING ON THE ICE

When snow and ice appear, the natural thing to do is to seek shelter and huddle together shivering, perhaps around a campfire or another source of heat. But in our northern countries, snow and ice appear quite often, and frequently for long spells at a time. Because of this, it would be pretty boring just to sit in a ring and shiver until the warmth and the Sun were to return in the spring. Besides, we discovered that moving about made us warmer. Thus, much of the wintertime that wasn't spent with other necessary tasks was spent in games, and racing over ice and snow was one of them. On the ice, bone skates were used, Old Norse "ísleggr", calf bones of cattle or other livestock, cut in shape, with holes drilled for ropes to fasten them on the shoes. Even King Eysteinn Magnusson according to the saga boast his ability to skate on such ice legs, and in Håvamål, the Norse Pagan collection of ethical verse, the listener is advised not to walk the ice without his skates on. On Iceland, knattleikr, a team sport on isleggr with balls and clubs was popular, probably a wintry offshot of the Irish hurley.

A Swedish page with pictures of isleggr: http://www.raa.se/uv/jarrestad/j09-01.htm

Later, the Dutch, with their frozen canals, were the leading stars in the development of skating. In more northerly countries, the skis often took over when the waters snowed down. Often, there were no bare-frosts at all. The word skate is a loan from Dutch, and probably arises from a name for the aforementioned bony equipment. Later, wooden models were developed, and the 16th century saw the first steel skates. With their skills on the ice, the Dutch constituted a problem for conquerors who sought to besiege their cities.

A Dutch virtual skating museum: http://www.schaatsenmuseum.nl/

COMPETITION FORMATS

From the beginning, the common competition format was either duels or pack races up to a fixed point, often marked with a pole, and back again, just like the foot races in the classical Greek Olympic age. Since the shortest distance between two points always is a straight line, there was no way to cheat by taking short cuts as long as they could check if all the racers passed the pole. If the distance between the start and the turning point was long, the spectators were unable to watch the race from start to finish. Hence, races over longer distances were often arranged by setting up two poles that the skaters had to pass a certain number of times. This format was well suited for the narrow Dutch canals, and was used there right up to the 20th century. In any format, the one who reached the finish line first was the competition winner, the next one was the runner up, and so on. If the number of entered competitors was too great for the size (or the strength) of the ice, there would be preliminary heats and a final.

TIMING

However, in the 1800s, there were clocks exact enough to make it possible to compare the achievements from different heats, and in England, new timed competition formats arose where the winner was the skater with the best time, regardless of heat. The skaters started two at a time. Originally, the winner of each pair proceeded to the next round so that the two theoretically best skaters eventually could meet in the final, but later, the clocks became reliable enough to allow the times to decide the competition. The races were arranged in separate lanes to avoid the accidents and unfair racing which so often occur in mass start races. Another advantage was that it was impossible to lurk behind the leading skater to save your energy for a fast finish, now all skaters had to do their best from the start.

Also, a lore of records soon developed, the skaters raced for world records and national records, and each of them set their personal ones which they strove to improve. Many number crazy people since then have made it their dearest hobby to play with these numbers. Particularly when the clever time (or samalog) points system was introduced in the early 1900s (in international championships from 1928), and it became possible to put the individual race in a greater perspective with a simple calculation, speedskating statistics became a popular hobby, and "adelskalenders" with skaters from all times ranked according to this system were published as their personal times changed.

On the stands, the enthusiasts stood in rows with pen and paper, writing down final and lap times and calculating samalog points. It was fascinating to see their favourite skaters and others move up and down the lists as they skated their best or more inferior distances. This paperwork also meant a lot for the popularity of the long distances, at least in Norway. At first, the long distances were often arranged on the Saturday, when most people went to work, while the shorter distances were arranged on Sunday for the big audience. But when they got used to writing down laptimes and compare pair by pair, the long distances became more exciting, and soon, the long distance specialists became the most popular skaters.

Electric timing made it possible to introduce hundredths, first in the 500 m in 1970 and in the other distances from 1972. Then the freaks had even more numbers to play with. But now it became more difficult to calculate the samalog points, and many enthusiasts lay aside their pen and paper and went on to other hobbies.

OVALS

One problem when you were skating in separate lanes was turning. In England, straight races often were skated with the start and the finish line in different places, but particularly in longer races, this was unfavourable for the audience. Also, the sharp turns around the poles often would lead to falls, damaged skates and other problems, including a great loss of speed. Instead of coming to a full stop to turn around the pole and then accelerate again, skaters would naturally tend to take a wider curve around the pole if possible. They must have found that the loss of speed diminished as the curve widened, and thus if races were held on lakes or wide rivers where wide curves were possible, and there was no snow to hamper them, they would benefit from skating in an oval trajectory instead of back and forth in a straight line. When races were arranged in the English system on ovals like these, the skater in the outer lane would have a longer distance to skate than the other one. But this was resolved by letting them switch lanes in one of the straights, so that they would skate alternately two inner and two outer curves. This alternating system was sometimes referred to as the Hamar system in the late 19th century, and it was probably invented at Hamar in the 1880s.

AXEL PAULSEN

Towards the end of the 19th century, speedskating was internationalised to a strong extent, and many skaters travelled both intra- and intercontinentally. One of the great pioneers was the Norwegian Axel Paulsen, who skated professionally and beat just about anyone daring to meet his challenges in the 1880s. His greatest contribution to speedskating history was his skate construction. Metal engineering had reached a sophisticated level in his time, and he cooperated with an engineering firm to develop an ingenious cup and tube construction much lighter than other skates without sacrificing strength. Also, he used longer and thinner blades than before. With this construction, he anticipated several decades of speedskate development, and noone managed to improve it significantly for more than a 100 years. With his endless victories over the foreigners, and particularly after a competition in 1885 where half the population of Kristiana went out to worship their hero, Paulsen became more popular in his country than it is possible to imagine today. He turned speedskating into the semi-religion it has been here in this country for long periods of time.

ISU

In 1892, the International Skating Union was founded. They introduced metric distances, the same distances we use today, and decided that important races had to be appointed with them in advance. This caused problems for countries like England and the Netherlands, where the races until now had been arranged when the ice happened to turn up, and this caused the hegemony to shift to the north more permanently. In the Nordic countries, it was now commonplace to clear the ice of snow to arrange races even in mid-winter, and some places, rinks were built on land for skating.

Also, this gave rise to a schism in speedskating, because ISU decided that the Hamar-modified English two-lane system was to apply in major competitions. But in North America, races had been mass start from the beginning, and because this was both popular and lucrative for the organizers, they kept their old style with mass starts and English miles until the popularity had evaporated completely by the 1960s.

The ISU also gave speedskating a supranational organ for reliable recognition of records and champions, and a series of international championships that's the envy of all other sports.

Have a look at Evert Stenlund's biographies of the greatest male speedskaters in history:
http://w1.461.telia.com/~u46130641/history.htm

Or Paul Hanlin's biographies of the women:
http://www.geocities.com/speedsk8fan/sweet16.html

WHAT TO WEAR

At an early stage, skaters discovered that tight clothes offered less wind resistance and hence were beneficial for speed. Thus, the skating competitions with their performers in elegant tights and high-tech skates in an arena of shining, polished ice and well groomed snow strings in scientifically measured rinks gave the audience a glimpse of a dreamland, a vision of the bright and hopeful future in their often drab and gloomy life.

Americans used tight-fitting skull caps from an early date, and in the 1930s, they replaced the elegant pillbox hats of the Oscar Mathisen era here in Europe as well, developing a characteristic shape, the so-called "devil's caps" that were used until the body suits became fashionable in 1976.

Originally the materials for the suits were wool and cotton, but after an especially successful experiment by the Canadian bicyclist Paul Enock, who beat the 3000 m world record in 1962 in his wife's nylon panties, the elite skaters of the world turned to artificial fibres in 1963 with a massacre of world records in their wake. Later, new fibres that almost make love to the air molecules have been invented and made use of by the skaters, the most common today seems to be lycra and dacron.

The cover-all phantom suits, also known as body stocking or body condome, were invented by the "toller Schweitzer" Franz Krienbühl, who discovered speedskating at a ripe age and used technology as a means to beat his age disadvantage. His best season was 1976, finishing 8th in the olympic games 10000 m, 47 years old(!)

Experiments with aerodynamic inlays in the suit in 1988 by Austrian Michael Hadschieff and in 1994 by Norwegian Atle Vårvik lead to ISU prohibition. Later, Canadian suit manufacturers developed ribs to direct the air currents and reduce resistance, and in 1998, their Dutch counterparts introduced zigzag strips, inspired by airplane wing equipment to glue on in specific places for a similar effect. Before the 1999/2000 season, another team of Dutch developers introduced "sharkskin" suits, with a roughened texture all over, again inspired by the aircraft industry. Skinsuits today tend to have a variety of surfaces depending on the degree and type of exposure to the wind. Further developments may be expected.

Here is a page with information and pictures on speedskating suits:
http://socalspeedskating.org/equip/skin/skin.htm
Norwegian-made skinsuits: http://www.irengjose.no

RINKS

In the beginning of the 20th century, most skating ovals were located on lakes, canals or fjord arms. But some of the richer clubs built rinks on land, for better control of the icemaking and fewer drowning accidents. Later this also came to be seen as a public interest and rinks were built, maintained and owned by local authorities. It was soon discovered time that some preparation of the ice lead to better times, and many rinkmasters developed the art of preparation to a high level of sophistication, the two "Zakken" Johansen at Frogner Stadion in Oslo (father and son) and "Jønna" Jacobsen in Hamar are famous examples. In the early 1960s, the icemaking team at Bislett, Oslo, started preparing the ice with a spray of tiny droplets of water frozen in place, which resulted in a smaller area of contact with the skate blade and thus less friction, at least until the droplets were worn down. This lead to a series of world records on this rink despite its low altitude. The importance of the altitude became evident when the rink in Davos was built towards the end of the 19th century, the thinner air offered less resistance and faster times, and the alpine sun did wonders to the surface layer of the ice.

The first refrigerated rinks were built in the 1870s, and in the USA, artifical indoor rinks soon popped up everywhere. Some of them were big enough that really fast times could be skated in them, comparable to the outdoor times. Later, speedskating in North America declined, and no outdoor 400 m artificially frozen rinks were built until 1958, when Nya Ullevi opened in Gothenburg, Sweden. On such rinks, speedskating meets at appointed times could be arranged also in places where it was impossible before, and better times could be achieved because the meets could be arranged in warmer and thereby thinner air, and the Sun could warm the ice with a lasting alpine sun effect without risk of melting. On such rinks, ice was prepared and renewed both before and during the competition with specially designed machines, which have proven superior also to the mentioned Bislett method, and because of these factors, the refrigerated rink in Inzell, Germany, could compete with Davos for the records despite its nearly 1000 m inferior altitude. But when the Medeo rink at 1691 meters altitude in Kazakhstan was refrigerated in 1972, the records became a Medeo monopoly.

The first indoor 400 m rink was built in 1986 in Heerenveen in the Netherlands, and immediately, the Dutch spectators had the opportunity to watch world records being set on their home ice, so often harrassed by wind and showers before. The reason was not only the elimination of the weather factor, but they could also warm the air, thereby making it thinner, and the warm air heated the surface layer of the ice, like an artificial alpine sun. The Canadians built their indoor rink for the Olympic games in Calgary 1988, and since the altitude there is more than 1000 meters and the people preparing the ice have acquired considerable knowledge and skill, Calgary became the new home of world records. Then an indoor rink in 1400 meters altitude was built for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic games, and as could be expected, it has captured most of the world records. Time will show if this is a permanent effect. Indoor rinks provide better and fairer conditions for racing than before, if prepared properly, and they are popular gathering places for skaters who train there to cope with the greater speeds they achieve. But their operation is much more expensive, and even in countries like the Netherlands, where several more or less covered facilities exist, there is only one offering international championships standard, so other towns don't see top skaters in major competitions.

The border between the lanes were often marked with poles and/or flags from the start, and the skaters were unable to skate as close to the markers as they can today, thereby losing time. Later, snowstrings became commonplace, and formed a very decorative element in speedskating for many years. But at artificial rinks, snow was often unavailable, and the cold from below could harden wet snow, risking dangerous situations for the skaters. Hence, loose markers of various materials were used, they would be removed for each preparation and later laid out again. During the European championship in Deventer 1966, the Dutch experimented with soap, but today, markers are made of plastic or rubber. Today, snowstrings in fact are not allowed, not even on natural ice, but they are still seen, particularly when racing in snowfall; after all, they have to put the snow some place.

KLAPSKATES

As mentioned above, the revolutionary skate construction of Axel Paulsen remained essentially unchanged for more than a hundred years. Its successor was the klapskate, a construction with a hinge in front to allow the blade to become unfastened from the heel at the shove-off. This allows a more natural kick, easier to perform and less tiring for the skater. Because they were so different, it took a long time for the klapskates to win the skaters over, but the results spoke for themselves, and the season 1997/98 became a record stormage surpassing the one in 1962/63. Skate factory engineers keep their summers busy perfecting the mechanism and introducing new finesses, and new turns on the record screw are not unthinkable. Is the equipment becoming more important than the skill of the skater? It has been estimated that the most famous of all speedskating records, Oscar Mathisen's 2.17,4 from 1914, would have been worth about 2.02 if skated in Calgary, with klapskates and a lycra-suit. The rest, which is about half of the difference to the present world record, is training: strength, stamina, technique, dexterity, etc. Ideally, all skaters should be able to start with equivalent equipment, and if so, it is still the man or the woman upon the skate that decides things.

The biggest manufacturers have lots of pictures and information about skates,
e.g. Viking: www.viking.nl
Raps: http://www.raps.nl/
SSS: http://www.dcn.ne.jp/~sss/
or Bont: http://www.bont.com/.

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