Take your pick

It’s been a while since I’ve penned a controversial post. Experience (and my web stats) have shown me that the most popular posts on this website are either slightly controversial (curiouser and curiouser, selection news, and on skating at altitude) or to do with photography (photo gear, and the truth behind the shutter are the most viewed articles on this site). This post will likely fall into the former category. Those readers who have been paying attention know that I’ve been very close to elite sport for a very long time now. I’m also quite an enthusiast when it comes to things like mathematics, and reading academic journals… which is not so common these days among professional athletes. I feel that this combination allows me to speak with at least a little bit of authority on these matters.

First up, I should mention that I can’t prove in a legal sense, any of the accusations that I will inevitably make or imply. I don’t think I’m going to get into any trouble for saying any of this, although if I were ever to become famous for whatever reason, I may be called up on it. If that happens, I won’t back down. You see, you don’t have to believe anything that I say. You could write me off as an embittered ex-athlete, except if you actually knew me, you would know that I don’t really care enough about sport, especially my own achievement in it, to ever really feel embittered about it. I’m just calling it as I see it, and those who know me well, know that I don’t miss much.

The first thing one needs to understand when one approaches sport these days is that, beyond amateur community league sport, sport has very little to do with all that “faster, higher, stronger” nonsense that you get fed as a kid, and really falls more under the category of entertainment (NBC’s budget for the winter games was north of a billion dollars). That is not to say that elite professional athletes aren’t faster, don’t jump higher, or aren’t stronger than your everyday club badminton player for example. But being good at sport, and I mean very good, is an expensive undertaking and only within the framework of sport-as-entertainment can that level of performance be sustained.

The Olympic Games, supposedly the pinnacle of sport, is basically a huge show. I apologize to anyone who still has any illusions about the Olympics being an amateur competition, because it is not. With very few exceptions (curling, for example), pretty much everyone who goes to the Olympics does their sport full time. How can they afford to do this? Easy – they are paid to. Often it isn’t much, and I would be lying if I were to give the impression that all professional athletes live very comfortable lives, but the truth of the matter is that hardly anyone at the Olympics is an amateur. Would Pierre de Coubertin have disapproved of what the modern Olympic games have become? Probably. But in a strange way, the influx of money into sport that comes with professionalism has become a great equalizer in the world of sport. Prior to this, participants at the games were mostly very wealthy people who could afford the “spare time” required to train properly for the games.

But what does this have anything to do with drugs in sport? Well, if I gave you some growth hormone, or EPO and said “here, take this” you probably wouldn’t do it. Why wouldn’t you do it? Well, you’re messing with your endocrine system, the viscosity of your blood, you might get caught, and the side-effects might leave you sterile or give you a heart attack. In short, it’s a risky thing to do. Maybe you can find a doctor to supervise your performance-enhancing drug taking, well then it starts to get expensive. All things considered, taking performance enhancing drugs effectively is an extremely expensive (the drugs themselves are also costly) and dangerous thing to do. In order for someone to make that kind of investment, and to take those kinds of risks, a very large reward is needed as incentive. So here’s where the money-in-sport equation starts to become relevant.

“Each one of the riders on the tour draws a salary of at least one million euros”

Take professional cycling as an example. The Tour de France is one of the most grueling and challenging sporting events ever dreamt up, and it is watched on TV by people all over the world. Because of this TV coverage, there is a huge potential for advertising on riders’ jerseys and, as a result of this, large and very well-run, and well-funded professional teams have formed who compete with each other. Each one of those bikes costs upwards of $10,000, and they have lots of bikes per rider for all kinds of situations and eventualities. Each one of the riders on the tour draws a salary of at least one million euros on top of all the free gear. Think about that for a second – one million euros a year just to get on a bike and ride all day. Riding is also fairly low-impact so a good rider can expect to have a career in excess of ten years. Six or seven good rides in le Tour during that time, and you may never have to worry about finances for the rest of your life. Does that create a strong incentive to dope? I would think so… and I would go so far as to say that everyone on the tour does it.

Don’t these people get tested? Of course they do, they just don’t get caught. The doping on the tour is systematic and the team doctors supervise it. Of course they do. Erythropoietin – better known as EPO increases your blood’s ability to carry oxygen, an obvious advantage in an endurance sport like road cycling. It also thickens the blood. I’m not exactly an endurance athlete (in fact, most would call me a “specialist sprinter”) and my resting heart rate is in the low 40s, a career endurance athlete would likely have a resting heart rate in the mid-to-low 30s. Think about that – that’s a beat every two seconds. Under normal blood pressure, if you’re running a beat every two seconds, if your blood is unusually thick, then it has a tendency to clot. If one of those clots ends up in a coronary artery, then your heart will stop. One of the roles of the team doctors these days is to wake up riders in the middle of the night, and get them onto the stationary bikes to keep their heart rates up to stop them from dying in their sleep. Of course, now that there’s a test for EPO, nobody uses it anymore, and another similar drug has almost certainly replaced it.

The trouble with tests is that you can only test for a known substance (you can obviously detect anything, but the quantities are so small that it would be impossible to show that any old anomaly was a performance-enhancing drug). Marion Jones doped for years on a designer steroid known as “The Clear” (tetrahydrogestrinone) and nobody would have ever known about it except that a sample of the stuff was turned in by a bitter coach and so a test was developed for it. If that sample had never been turned in, it would still be in use today, and remain undetectable. There is a very good chance that there are more designer steroids out there which may never be detected.

Does this ruin the world of sport? I don’t think so. It just makes it a little bit different. A lot of kids grow up thinking that being really good at sport is just a matter of training hard and being dedicated. When you slowly make your way up the ranks of elite sport, there is a point where you realize that this isn’t true, and a myriad of factors that are completely outside your control, like genetics, play a huge role in determining how successful you ultimately are at sport. Despite what he says, it is almost certainly true that Lance Armstrong, along with everyone who rides in the tour, is doped up to the eyeballs. That doesn’t make his achievement of winning seven tours any less remarkable. He still had to train very hard and be a bit of a genetic freak of nature to do all of those things. His battle with cancer is no less inspiring. There’s nothing “unfair” about the doping that goes on in the tour, because it is still very much a level playing field because everyone does it.

So which sports are rife with doping and which aren’t? As it is with most things these days, you have to follow the money. Anything that appears in the Olympics is a likely candidate because the exposure that the Olympics guarantee will raise the kind of money that makes doping “worth” it. Track and field is a good example of a sport in which not-doping places you at a severe disadvantage. Take Usain Bolt for example. I would contend that his world records are not “clean”. Of course, I don’t think any world records have been clean since the late 80s when athletics really started to become very financially lucrative because of sponsorships, endorsements, and the IAAF world athletics tour.

100m world record progression (try to ignore the background image lines)

As a side note, when viewing word record progressions in sports, it is always interesting to note that whenever a test is developed for a significant and widely used drug, such as testosterone, the frequency of world records suddenly drops, but always eventually catches up. The year before a sex test was developed for women there were about 15 women who ran 1500m in under 4 minutes. The year after the test was developed, that number dropped to 2.

The Jamaican case is an especially good example of doping evasion. One of the major advances in anti-doping efforts was the introduction of out of competition testing. Prior to this, people would dope for 3.9 years and then be “clean” for the Olympics (they often didn’t bother being clean for anything else – Carl Lewis, gold medalist in 1988 after Ben Johnson’s famous disqualification himself failed three tests in the two months prior to the Seoul Olympics). Out of competition testing involves randomly showing up to an athletes home or training facility and demanding a urine sample. This generally works very well, making it almost impossible to systematically take any detectable drugs. However, there is a flaw in the system – WADA, the world ant-doping agency requires respective countries’ IOCs to ensure that the testing is carried out. Countries like the USA have USADA and Australia has ASDA to conduct their out of competition testing. However, countries like Jamaica don’t have such an agency.

Again, I emphasize that I am not taking away from any of these guys’ achievements. In a perfect world where nobody doped, Usain Bolt would probably still have won his gold medals and set his world records. Those records would have been a little slower, sure, but no less impressive. The margins might also have not been so great because the absence of out-of-competition testing gives the Jamaicans a distinct advantage over their counterparts from other countries. One might be tempted to think that this advantage should be huge, and that the playing field is no longer level, but this isn’t quite true. Firstly, countries that have their own out of competition testing programs also tend to be a bit wealthier, and thus have better access to better drugs. Secondly, out of competition testing programs aren’t without their flaws.

Speed skaters get tested a lot. As do badminton players, I’m told. That’s because they don’t dope. I’ll get to why that is the case shortly. But my point here is that an out of competition testing program sets itself a goal of a certain number of tests. It them measures its “success” by how many positive tests it gets. Often (and I cannot prove this, but I’m pretty certain that it happens) when the doping is systematic and state-sanctioned, the “random” anti-doping program will be timed in such a way as to coincide with periods in a doping program where an athlete won’t test positive. During times when an athlete will test positive, the anti-doping agency will simply test other athletes. This way, they can still get to the end of their month or whatever, and say that they have a certain number of negative tests. Taking the randomness out of the system effectively renders it useless, and does so in a way that makes it seem like it still works.

So why don’t badminton players and speed skaters dope? Like I said before, not every elite athlete leads a luxurious life of multi-million dollar endorsements. Many sports also don’t benefit a great deal from doping. The greatest advantages to be had are in sports which require endurance, and muscle bulk. Badminton is great sport, and one must be quite fit to play it at the elite level, but the potential gains that doping would have on badminton, while they do exist, are probably not great enough to make the risks worth it.

Speed skating is an interesting example, and one that I’ve thought about for a while (for obvious reasons). I’m actually pretty sure that doping does exist in speed skating (apart from the obvious case of Claudia Pechstein) but that it is not very widespread. Curiously, Pechstein was only caught because of the introduction of the Biological Passport which doesn’t directly detect the presence of illegal substances in the blood, but rather it looks at the parameters of certain biological markers and sees how much they fluctuate over time. Strangely enough, Pechstein managed to get an injunction which allowed her to do one race at the Salt Lake City world cup in December 2009 (where I was also present, photos here) and, not surprisingly, she failed to qualify for the Vancouver 2010 games.

I mentioned before that riders on the tour earn upwards of a million euros a year, which over a long career can be a pretty strong incentive to dope. There are probably one, maybe two speed skaters in the world who make that kind of money. Everyone else kind of just scrapes by. The other factor at work here is income inequality. Speed skaters, by necessity, almost always come from fairly wealthy countries. This is because it is an expensive sport – the skates are expensive, ice time is expensive, the suits we wear are expensive. To even be able to compete, a huge amount of money needs to be invested first, over a long amount of time. The facilities also present a problem – I don’t know of a single long track in the world that doesn’t operate at a loss. Those things are extremely expensive to run, and most do it with government support, and a government has to be fairly wealthy in order to support that kind of sport.

This is why income inequality is important – it all comes down to a fairly simple equation: on the one hand, you have the enormous cost and risks, both legally and health-wise associated with taking drugs, and on the other you have the potential financial gain that may result from success gained by taking drugs. Most of the world’s speed skaters come from the Netherlands or Norway, both are very wealthy countries with high standards of living. In other words, it’s going to take huge amounts of money to make them want to dope, and while there is a lot of money in skating, there isn’t enough for that. Speed skating is also quite popular in many former eastern-bloc countries, and while the argument for doping in those cases is more plausible, it is still unlikely because, without the huge inequalities that used to exist, and without the massive state-driven systematic doping machine (whose last “product” was a young Claudia Pechstein) poor kids who want to make it in life have much better options (like internet scams) and the people who end up in speed skating tend to come from relatively wealthy families.

Contrast that to running, where athletes can come from very poor countries, and where entry-level equipment is very cheap. Compare a kid who is a talented runner in Jamaica with one from Norway. Who’s going to take the huge risks? Who stands to go from a life of poverty to one of unimaginable wealth? Who is going to receive help from their own sport’s governing bodies with systematic doping? Keeping this all in mind, I’m actually very optimistic about the eventual demise of systematic doping. Because in a perfect world, the monetary incentives just won’t be strong enough for people to want to take the risks. The only people left who will dope will be the crazy sociopathic people whose desire to win outweighs their sanity (at which point sport will obviously be only for entertainment purposes). Of course, such a world is still a very long way off. In the meantime, we’ll still have to put up with similarly crazy people who defend doping by being either ignorant of the way sport works (“but doping can only affect a 3% gain in performance at most”… uh duh, a 3m margin in a 100m race is kind of a big deal) or ignorant of the health risks involved, keeping in mind that those most at risk are also the poorest and least able to protect themselves from those risks.

At the moment, a lot of people “love” sport, but I suspect it is only because sport is their ticket out of poverty, which is what ultimately opens the door to the possibility of doping. In an ideal world, even though Olympic athletes would still be professionals, and would probably get fairly decent pay (as entertainers), it wouldn’t be so much that it would necessitate the need for performance enhancing drugs. In that sense at least, they would be doing it simply because they love the sport, which is where the word “amateur” originally comes from.

Further reading: “Positive” by Werner Reiterer, my own review here.

The Infamous Hand of God

I’m just going to warn everyone now, this is going to be one of my least-coherent rants to date.

It is sometimes said that I have a “soft spot” for sport, and this is largely true. Why is this the case? I’m certainly not the typical “jock” and I’m not the sort of person who will go out of his way to watch every minute of every stage of the Tour de France, like some of my more enthusiastic friends might. I will, however, go out of my way to watch events from the Olympic games, and other important once-every-four-years sporting competitions like the World Cup. I think the real reason for my soft spot, is that I like seeing people who are very, very good at what they do, do it. It is certainly a welcome break from everyday happenings in the news, which are mostly the result of very wicked people who are very bad at what they do, making the worst of a terrible situation.

But that is for another post. The FIFA World Cup is an interesting beast and one that I have watched fairly closely since 1998. Some call it the most important sporting competition in the world and I am reluctantly inclined to agree. This might seem a strange thing to say, especially from a person who once tried to qualify for the Olympic Games, another competition which may, with good cause, lay claim to the title of “world’s most important sporting competition”. It’s certainly something to think about, and I’m sure many people would disagree, but if alien being were observing us from above and they wanted to get a good idea of what humanity was about, I wouldn’t tell them to watch the UN in session, or a music festival, or the Olympics, because none of those things will really give them a very broad sweep of the human condition, though the Olympics come close. The world cup, on the other hand, probably will. The next closest thing perhaps is total war, but that is a (thankfully) rare occurrence.

But what of the competition itself?

For this year’s world cup, I’ve managed to watch a little bit of almost every match. I’ve watched at least half of the matches in their entirety. This is no small feat in Hong Kong (that’s where I am at the moment). By some quirk of corrupt decision making, free-to-air television has managed to have the rights to only 3 matches of the entire competition while cable TV has the rights to all of the matches. I have thus been forced to watch most of the matches on (quite possibly illegal) streaming sites on the internet. The obvious downer to this is that the resolution isn’t so good, and there is a bit of a delay of 10-20 seconds, which is really annoying when you’re chatting to someone on the internet who is getting live without a significant delay and they say “oohhh!” before anything really happens on your screen. One of the pluses though, is that a popular telecast to stream is Australia’s SBS coverage, which I find to generally be very good as well as being in a comforting and familiar accent. I have a feeling that when I watch the upcoming semifinals on local TV, I will probably turn the sound off and, instead, listen to the sound from the stream because local commentators are generally clueless, talk a lot of smack¹, and have grating voices.

For me, the world cup REALLY started when Australia played Germany. Whenever the socceroos play, one of the greatest flaws in the game is revealed – the “art” of diving. Diving is against the rules, although you’ll hear a lot of people, including FIFA president Sep Blatter, tell you that it is part of the game. It shouldn’t be part of the game. This is similar to idiots who say that having a lot of long-term unemployed people in society is ok because that’s just the way it is. The trouble with diving is that, if successful, it can be hugely beneficial for your team. The trouble with the socceroos, is that they don’t dive much; not compared with other major teams in the competition. This makes them a better team in terms of their ability to follow the rules, however they are punished for their troubles by having lots of free kicks and the occasional penalty given against them. These can have a huge impact on the outcome of the game, for example in the last world cup they were tied at 0-0 when a questionable penalty was awarded to Italy which gave them a lead in the 94th minute. Italy then went on to lift the world cup. Of course, the Germans aren’t exactly the worst culprits in the diving stakes either. When the scoreline read 4-0 at full time, most people wrote it off as a lopsided pairing. Of course, anyone knows anything about how good Australia really are, and anyone who actually watched the game knows that the real reason for the scoreline was, firstly, because Tim Cahill was sent off, and secondly because Germany actually played very well. The scoreline would eventually come back to haunt us because we drew even on points with Ghana at the end of the group stage, but lost out on goal difference, and so missed out on advancing to the round of 16.

On the subject of questionable refereeing, this world cup has once again brought to light just how bad it can really be. Obviously, as a supporter of Australia, I disagree with the harshness of the penalties (red cards) handed out to Cahill and Kewell in the first two games of the group stage. Red cards are especially damaging because, not only does the team have to play a man down for the rest of the game, but the player to whom the card was given must also sit out the next game. Those are two of our most significant players and I have little doubt in my mind that the result of the matches would have been quite different had different coloured cards been handed out. Nowhere was refereeing error more apparent than in the round of 16 game between Germany and England. The score was 2-1 to Germany, and England had scored just minutes before when Frank Lampard struck the crossbar with such force that the ball bounced inside the line. That was a goal. Not only would 2-2 have changed the tone and momentum of the match, having a very obvious goal denied would have significantly impacted on team morale of the English. The scoreline eventually read 4-1.² All manner of unusual arguments have been forwarded against introducing technology to assist the refs, but it’s mostly rubbish. It may be human to make mistakes, but it is also well within the human condition to want to correct them.

The makeup of the final four is not what anyone would have predicted. The first “surprise” although it shouldn’t have been if anyone watched them play, was the neither France nor Italy made it into the final 16. Perhaps France is like the Star Trek movies, only doing well on every alternate incarnation. Recall that in 2002, France also failed to make it out of the group stage after winning in style over Brazil in 1998. New to the stage is Uruguay. Uruguay isn’t really “new” as it has won two world cups including the first ever one in Uruguay in 1930, and then again in 1950 against Brazil in the Rio’s Maracaña stadium (I’m surprised they made it out alive). The new Uruguayan side is a talented one, to be sure, but the manner in which they reached the final four has made them unpopular. While playing Ghana in a close and exciting game, their star striker Suarez used his hands to keep a goal out. He was given a red card and Ghana were awarded a penalty, but they failed to convert and it went into a penalty shootout, which Ghana lost quite badly. Without Suarez in the side for the semifinal match with the Netherlands, I suspect that this is the end of the Uruguayan’s world cup campaign.

That the Netherlands is in the final four is also a bit surprising. On paper, it perhaps shouldn’t be – they’ve won all of their last 13 consecutive games. However, their play has been uninspiring to say the least. Arjen Robben is the only player on their team with any real creative capacity, and he’s been scoring most of their goals. The team overall however has shown to be a sound unit, and a disciplined one. They certainly earned their place in the final having had to come through Brazil to get here. On that note… when they went 1-0 in the first half of their game against Brazil, they stayed calm and kept plugging away, but when Brazil went down 2-1 later in the same game, it fell apart at the seams. The Brazil-Netherlands game highlighted the fact that, as important as individual skill is, this is still a team sport. Every single one of the players on the Brazilian team have exceptional ball skills, but they’re just not so great at working as a team. Former captain-turned-coach, Dunga, had his work cut out for him, and is, in the author’s opinion, copping an unfair amount of the blame for the loss.

On the subject of coaching… coaching a national team in the era of modern football would be among one of the most difficult coaching challenges in all of sport. It would be extremely frustrating because you get a bunch of players with proven talent and ability, but who aren’t used to playing with each other, and you’ve somehow got to manufacture a good team out of them. Take England for example, who in 2002, and 2006 had the best midfield in the world… correction – they have a group of midfield players the sum of whose talents is greater than the sum of any other national side’s midfield. Yet, England have consistently sucked at recent world cups. Brazil is the classic example. If you simply measured the raw footballing talent of the individuals of a team, then Brazil should win every world cup, but that clearly doesn’t happen. An interesting debate that has arisen is one surrounding various different styles of coaching.

Diego Maradona, pictured above, has become coach of Argentina, which has been doing quite well until they were crushed by Germany 4-0 recently. He has endured sharp criticism because his coaching involves a lot less “technical” coaching, and a lot of the “psychological”… and it shows. He is often seen hugging players, and it is said that he gives stirring pep-talks before matches, and during half-time breaks. I don’t think this criticism is fair. In a world cup, when you’ve got talented players who are very experienced, but not necessarily with each other, it is important to “let them play” and not to try and force a particular style on them that they may be unfamiliar with. Brazil’s Dunga tried this, and got away with it briefly. It is also very underappreciated by members of the general public how significant the psychological aspect of the game really is. Especially in football, where team cohesion and momentum can make or break a game.

A few days ago, I said that whoever wins the game between Germany and Argentina would go on to win the tournament. I still believe this, and not just because Germany beat a pretty decent side 4-0. Argentina’s defense wasn’t great, but they’re not a bad side either. They did beat a pretty decent Mexican side 3-1, and the difference could have easily been much greater. Germany will face Spain in their semifinal. Span were the side that I tipped to win the tournament before it began. However, Spain have struggled, first losing out to Switzerland and really only making by the skin of their teeth for the rest of their matches. For such an incredibly talented team, they sure don’t score a lot of goals, which is why I think that Germany will make minced meat out of them in their semifinal match tomorrow. Close as the game might be, when it comes to taking advantage of opportunities to score, the Germans have a definite edge. I was quite worried that a German side without Michael Ballack might struggle, especially at a time when many young players are just moving into the ranks of the senior side, but as it happens, those youngsters can play just fine without Ballack. And with a prolific scorer in Miroslav Klose (now there’s a German name if ever I knew one) who has just surpassed Pele and is one short of the all-time record for goals in a world cup, the Germans are as dangerous as they’ve ever been.

Addendum: It has taken me so long to write this, that the Netherlands-Uruguay game has not only started, but is almost over. As of the 84th minute, the score is 3-1 in favour of the Netherlands (who are playing the best that they’ve played all tournament). A Dutch-German final should be interesting.

Team photo from the world cup in Salt Lake City. L-R: Harry Oosterhuis, Rogina De Jong, Daniel Grieg, Sophie Muir, Joshua Lose, Desly Hill, Marie Walth Perkins, Daniel Yeow

Beep – the alarm goes off, it is 6am. It is dark. A small group of skaters drag themselves out of bed, throw some warm clothes on and grab their skating bags. We walk outside and fumble around in the darkness trying to activate the lights on our bicycles. 40 minutes later we are warming up on the ice in Ijsbaan Twente, in Enschede, near the Dutch-German border – we are the only people there. It is still dark.

There is something unusual about this team. We train in the Netherlands, but we are not Dutch. We aren’t even European – we are Australians. In the summer of 2008, Desly Hill, former Australian inline skating coach and now Dutch national inline coach, hatched the most audacious of plans – an Australian long track speed skating team. There has never been one before, only lone individuals training under a coach. Two current Australian junior inliners and three seniors who had all but quit the sport got the call, and by October we were assembling in Enschede, taking the first tentative steps onto the ice, and on an incredible journey.

Fast forward to Vancouver, February 2010. Sophie Muir becomes the first Australian long track speed skater in 16 years. She is also the first female olympic long tracker from Australia… ever. She has only been ice skating for 16 months. Three other skaters on the team were at the top of the reserve list for the games, but barely missed out. It is scarcely believable that less than one year ago, only one of us had even qualified for a world cup race. It is even less believable that two years ago, only one of us had ever stepped on the ice wearing speed skates. To understand how this happened, we should first examine some of the characters in our extraordinary play.

7 years ago, Sophie Muir quit inline skating after winning a career total of seven world championship titles (six of them junior). She was backpacking around Europe in the summer and came across old friend Desly Hill in Gijon, Spain during the 2008 inline world championships. A few weeks later she was lacing up a pair of ice skates and had agreed to “give it a try” for a month to see if she liked it. One month became two months. Two months became three. Three months quickly became sixteen, and the transformation from beginner to olympian has been so rapid that she still gets quizzical looks from people when she mentions that she is a speed skater from Australia.

3 years ago Joshua Lose woke up in hospital after colliding with a car while riding his bicycle. He had severe head trauma and had lost his sense of smell. It would be several weeks before he could even hold a conversation and have any hope of remembering it later. He would eventually recover (but not his sense of smell) and move to holland to skate inline races at the suggestion of Desly, but be forced to quit due to foot problems which required expensive surgery. He was subsequently convinced to join our team on the ice and within two months had qualified for the world cups in the 5000m. He would go on to qualify for the Olympic games with an impressive time of 6:27, only to miss out due to a technicality in the ISU rules concerning Olympic qualification.

Desly Hill herself won seventeen medals at world championships in inline skating, four of which are gold – all of them in senior division. She has been coaching skaters very successfully ever since she quit competing and has also miraculously managed to find time to complete a masters degree in applied science majoring in elite sports coaching. She doesn’t like to lose, and she knows how to win. Even after her first olympics, and the incredible result made even moreso by the impossibly short lead-time, she’s hungry for more. Next time she wants a medal, and like any coach she is already making plans for bringing that objective to fruition.

Since starting the team, we’ve moved from Enschede to Heerenveen – the Mecca of speed skating. So much has happened in such a short time that it is easy to forget that 2 years ago there was no Australian long track team. Only in recent months has the administrative machinery of Australian sport realized that we exist and, thanks to our high media profile at the Vancouver Olympics, our prospects for future support from Australia look very good indeed. In a few days our very talented juniors, Brooke Lochland and Daniel Grieg, will be skating in the junior world championships in Moscow. Our team is here to stay, and while the cry of “the Australians are coming” may seem an amusing novelty now; I have little doubt that soon those words will strike fear into the hearts of our competitors.

But the team is much more than the sum of our parts. We’ve known each other through inline skating for years, and we feel like family. This amazing positive energy has allowed us to thrive in an environment that is a long way from, and very unlike our home (Australia is much warmer for instance). In our struggle we have helped encourage each other onto new heights never previously imaginable. Our camaraderie has been the envy of other skaters, many of whom have expressed interest in joining our ranks. Our assistant coach Rogina De Jong once accused us of “smiling too much”, which she mistook for us not taking things seriously. Like many athletes, we are obviously fiercely competitive. However, if the last 16 months have taught me anything, it is that in keeping with the Olympic spirit, it is important to not only play for keeps, but to also play for fun. The Australian team is determined to keep improving, just as we are committed to having fun. So watch out at the next big speed skating competition – the Australians are coming!

Team Germany crosses the line despite a fall on the last straight...

These olympics continue to surprise and inspire. Most unusual of the aftermath of the preliminaries is the absence of team Canada in the ladies’ final. The team that lost narrowly to the USA (by 4 hundredths of a second – less than a blade length) was the same team that broke the world record back in Calgary on the 6th of December. Also slightly unexpected is the absence of the Netherlands in the finals. I say “slightly” because the dutch are famous for not working as well as a team as some of the other countries are. The dutch men’s team was simply outskated by a strong team USA led by former inliner Chad Hedrick, while the dutch ladies were their own worst enemy when Renate Groenewold ran out of gas with a lap to go and caused her team to finish behind a strong German team.

The Russian ladies were unexpectedly bettered by Poland, who were in turn bettered (though not unexpectedly) by Japan. Japan will now face Germany in the final, who did very well to overcome the upset-causing US team despite Anni Friesinger running out of gas and falling in the final straight, dramatically throwing her skate over the line then punching the ice in the belief that she had let her team down, only to look up at the scoreboard to find that they had ousted the americans by two tenths of a second.

While the dutch were busy being knocked out by the americans in the men’s race, team Canada made a tough match with Norway look easy, bettering them by over a second, to set up another USA vs Canada showdown, which should warm up the crowd for tomorrow’s big hockey final.

It is difficult to pick a winner in either division. Germany needs to swap out Friesinger and bring in fresh skater Katrin Mattscherodt and also need to communicate a bit better to avoid the last skater falling off the back. Japan have cruised through without much fuss and really have skated “textbook” races, which will make it close. Based on individual performances of the skaters, I’m tipping Germany because of their better performance in the distance events, which will give them an advantage in recovering between rounds, and skating on this slow ice.

The men’s is also very difficult to pick. Watch out for “pushing” strategies. Canada have been practicing and perfecting a technique of the back skaters pushing the front skaters in order to save a bit of energy of the leading skater, particularly in the corner exit. The americans are just beginning to learn about this, and it could be the crucial difference in what is otherwise a very close match up. You’ve got one experienced veteran on each team, in Chad Hedrick and Denny Morrison, both of whom are great 5000m/1500m skaters, teamed up with relatively young and less-experienced up-and-coming skaters. I’m going to give it to Canada, because the hometown crowd will make the lactic burn in their thighs just a little more bearable.

The Canadian women's team on their way to a world record

The ladies’ 5000m was without incident nor any significant surprises (which itself is a bit of a surprise at these games). The favorite – Czech Martina Sablikova won, but after exhausting herself in trying to stay ahead of the pace set by German 21-year-old Stephanie Beckert which was extraordinary to say the least, taking entire seconds off the track record. The bronze medal was won by host country hero and opening ceremony flag-bearer Clara Hughes who became one of Canada’s most decorated olympians with 6 medals – two from summer games (cycling) and four from winter games (speed skating).

The upcoming team pursuit races are only preliminaries, but should be interesting to watch nevertheless. During the world cup season prior to the games, the teams raced each other in a time-trial fashion (like everything else in long track) in order to obtain the highest possible ranking. The top eight qualify for the Olympic games, where unlike in the world cups, the positions are determined by a knockout tournament. This raises the possibility that the best strategy in a race (especially in the quarter finals) is NOT to cover the distance as fast as one possibly can, which is very unusual for long track.

To be good at the team pursuit requires much more than having the three fastest skaters. Team cohesion is also very important. The pursuit draws on skills which are not often well-developed in long track skaters, such as having to skate well in a pack and being able to change the lead skater smoothly and with the minimum expenditure of effort. The ability to skate well behind another skater and get the maximum benefit from the aerodynamic advantage of not having to lead can be crucial. These are skills that are well developed in short track and inline speed skaters, so expect teams made up of crossover athletes to do well.

The favorite for the men is the Netherlands, and on paper it seems that they should be impossible to beat. Sven Kramer will also be hungry for redemption after his devastating disqualification. They are, however, not invincible because they, more than most teams, lack the kind of team cohesion that many other teams actively try to foster. Other challengers include Canada, and the USA. Curiously, the US team did not field Shani Davis to go with Chad Hedrick and Trevor Marsicano, which, one would think, would be something of a “dream team”. Last year’s world champions, Sweden, will need a miracle to make it through, as they are paired with the dutch in the quarterfinals.

The ladies are a similar story with team Canada coming in as heavy favorites, having set a world record in Calgary just last December. The race for the silver will be interesting as Japan, Germany, Russia and the Netherlands are all very strong. In fact, in the Salt Lake City world cup, the last one before the olympics, second, third, and fourth were only separated by a hundredth of a second. The Netherlands has also been suffering from some internal politics and may not end up starting with their strongest 3 skaters which could impede their progress to the final.

Also to think about – each team is allowed to name a squad of four skaters, while only three have to skate (the time is taken from the third skater). This means that the team in the preliminaries may differ from the team in the final. In an effort to “save” skaters for the final, it may be that a slightly slower team doesn’t make it through because they tried to save themselves for a final.

Elma and Martina have a cuddle after their 5k at a world cup last season

Just when I thought this Olympics couldn’t get more unpredictable, the men’s 10,000m threw me another curve ball. Heavily favored for the win, Sven Kramer is disqualified under the most unusual of circumstances. While making a routine lane change from the inner to the outer, coach Gerard Kemkers has a brain cramp and tells him to go inside, Sven obediently obliges and is disqualified for failing to change lanes. He continued to skate, oblivious to this, to set a winning time only to have a post race meeting with Kemkers that can only be described as “heated”. That left 5000m silver medalist Lee Seung Hoon of Korea in the gold medal position, followed by Ivan Skobrev of Russia, then Bob de Jong also of the Netherlands.

In the ladies’ 5000m the clear favorite is Czech Martina Sablikova. Stephanie Beckert of Germany could be a threat as she has a really good kick for the finish, but since she isn’t paired with Sablikova, I don’t think she’ll quite get there. Kristina Groves and Clara Hughes will have the home crowd support and could lift, Groves in particular could be one to watch out for. Daniela Anschutz Thoms from Germany is also a medal threat, especially since she is in the last pair with Martina and will be able to measure her pace off her.

The wild card to watch for is Elma de Vries of the Netherlands. If her head is in a good place, she could conceivably win this event, but the mental aspect is so unpredictable it is impossible to say at this stage. Norway’s Maren Haugli is also an outside chance for a medal and should be inspired after her brother finished 6th in the 10k.

Bob de Jong

The ladies’ 1500m result was, characteristically for the games, a surprise. Inspired by countryman Mark Tuitert’s spectacular win in the 1500m, Ireen Wüst equaled the track record on less-than-optimal ice conditions to set a time which was, ultimately, too difficult to catch. Favorite for the gold medal, Canadian Kristina Groves, could only manage a valiant silver, after being right on-pace for most of the race, and just faltering in the final meters. In third was the gold medalist from the 3000m Martina Sablikova from the Czech Republic.

The men’s 10,000m should be a showdown between 5000m champion Sven Kramer, and fellow dutchman Bob de Jong, who is also the defending Olympic champion. After faltering in the 5000m and missing out on the podium, Bob will be hungry for redemption in what will likely be his final appearance as a skater in the Olympics. The rest of the field is not far behind with Håvard Bøkko of Norway, and Ivan Skobrev of Russia both hot on pace after earning a bronze medal each (and swapping places 3rd-4th, in the 1500m and 5000m). I would give Skobrev the slight advantage in that duel because he is in the final pair with Sven Kramer.

Also look out for Italy’s Enrico Fabris and Alexis Contin of France who will skate together in the 6th pair. They have been training partners during this season, and should be able to keep each other company and push each other to a peak performance. Alexis has also had a long break, not skating since the 5000m and taking the time in between to go to Calgary to train at altitude, as well as escape the media storm that surrounds the Olympics. In fact, I would go so far as to tip Contin for a medal.

Outside chances to watch for are silver medalist Lee Seung Hoon of Korea, who may surprise us as his finishing laps in the 5000m indicate that he had a bit left in the tank. Arjen van der Kieft (whose name is spelled incorrectly on the Olympic start list) from the Netherlands is also an outside threat who has been known to skate the occasional amazing 10k. In the world cup race in Hamar, despite racing in B-grade and not being paired with anyone of any significance, managed to skate a time within a second of Håvard Bøkko’s.

Despite appearences, this is Kristina Groves just after she WON the 1500m at the Calgary World Cup

I’m beginning to think that I may be better off simply putting the names off the start list in a hat and randomly choosing them. Once again, the old adage that “anything can happen” in a race has been proven true. My pick for the win was nowhere to be seen while Shani Davis, the world record holder and favorite managed to come second in the 1500m, a mere 0.03 of a second in front of bronze medalist Håvard Bøkko. The winner, from the Netherlands, was Mark Tuitert, who hasn’t won a race all season. Not only that, he won by a considerable margin of over half a second, and was the only person to skate under 1:46. Ongelooflijk!

The ladies’ event is a bit more of a mixed bag. The statistical favorite should be Kristina Groves, followed by Canadian team mate Christine Nesbitt who won a gold medal in the 1000m. Nesbitt comes into this race ranked 2nd in the world cups despite missing one of the races. If the result of the men’s race is any indication, the ice conditions are currently favoring the all-rounders over the sprinters, so third Canadian Brittany Schussler could be a medal threat. Daniela Anschutz Thoms of Germany, after missing out on a bronze medal in the 3000m by three hundredths of a second to Groves, will be hungry, as will gold medalist from that event Martina Sablikova, who has been known to pull out a very good 1500m on occasion. Ireen Wüst of the Netherlands, and Katya Shikova of Russia are outside medal threats.

Annette Gerritsen, although Dutch national champion in the distance may falter here as the ice is slow favoring longer-distance skaters, as might her team mate Margot Boer, despite her high order in the pairing list. Another skater who seems to be expected to do a lot but probably wont is world record holder in this event, Cindy Klassen, who really hasn’t been able to entirely regain her previous form since coming back from knee surgery.

But really… who the hell knows what’s going to happen!? It’s the Olympics!

Chad Hedrick in the final lap of his 1500m in Calgary

Canada finally brought home the gold with Christine Nesbitt’s gutsy win the 1000m. The slow ice causing problems for many, with a lot of skaters blowing up before the finish, dutch skater Annette Gerritsen set a great time of 1:16.58 to take the lead ahead of Laurine van Riessen until Nesbitt, after being behind in the earlier splits, pipped her at the finish by 2 hundredths of a second. A very good result for Gerritsen who had an unfortunate spill in the 500m two days previously.

The men’s 1500 is a similar story, with a clear favorite, but with some serious threats. Shani Davis, winner of the 1000m is the obvious favorite, especially having broken the world record only in mid December. Moreover, it was his own world record and he is, to date, the only person to have ever gone under 1:42, and he’s done it twice. The challenger is team mate Chad Hedrick who, while not possessing a world record, beat Shani in a 1500m race in Calgary late last year. Another point for consideration is that Chad’s last lap in the 1000m was the fastest of the field, even faster than eventual champion Shani. In the 1500, where the ability to hold on is more important than the ability to get off to a good start, Chad’s die-hard endurance could be the deciding factor, especially in slow conditions such as these.

There are many excellent contenders for the bronze, who could conceivably snatch the silver as well. Dutchmen Stefan Groothuis and Mark Tuitert should put in a strong show, especially after coming 4th and 5th respectively in the 1000m (and only being separated by 3 hundredths of a second on that occasion). Former world record holder Denny Morrison is an outside chance, although given his poor performance in the 1000m, I’m guessing he’s not feeling the ice too well at the moment. Håvard Bøkko from Norway also has a very strong final lap and could rise to the challenge in these slow conditions as well.

Outside chances at a medal include Russia’s Ivan Skobrev, who won a bronze in the 5000m, and of course, Mo Tae Bum of Korea, who already has a gold from the 500, and a silver from the 1000 (between Shani and Chad). Both are obviously skating well, and are certainly in the hunt.

Sophie Muir

Sophie Muir recently made history by not only becoming the first Australian long track skater in 16 years, but is also the first ever female long track olympic speed skater. We’re pretty proud of her. But it takes more than just a pretty face to get into the olympics. Literally thousands of hours of work must be endured to extract the kind of performances required to even get here. As part of my contribution to this team, aside from just being another training partner, I am occasionally called on to help motivate the members of our squad. To this end, I put together a short video for Sophie to watch just before her olympic debut. And now that she has safely completed all her events at this games, I have posted it to youtube so that the world can appreciate the heights of corniness I reach, just to help extract a good performance out of an athlete. The song that can be heard in the background is “Quietly” by Air Castles, and the last few lines of poetry are from the poem “We Are More” which was read out as part of the opening ceremony.