10,000 metres, Men

Most people were looking at Sven Kramer to win the 10,000 m. After losing the gold due to an incorrect crossing at Vancouver, Kramer was looking for revenge, and his 5,000 m gold proved he was in shape. Kramer had also won the season’s only World Cup in this distance, although that race lacked his two main Dutch competitors, Jorrit Bergsma and Bob de Jong. Bergsma had beaten Kramer at the 2013 Worlds in Sochi, while De Jong - the 2006 champion - was competing in his fifth Olympics. Apart from the Dutchmen, defending Olympic champion Lee Seung-Hun and Belgian inline skater Bart Swings were considered for the medals. Several other contenders withdrew prior to the race. Russia’s Ivan Skobrev withdrew to focus on the team pursuit, as did the Norwegian entrants, who claimed the Dutch would be unbeatable. This earned the skaters a lot of criticism at home (from among others 1994 multiple Olympic champion Johann Olav Koss), especially after the bronze medal time turned out to be relatively weak and the Norwegian team failed to make the semi-finals in the team pursuit.

De Jong was the first of the favorites to skate, posting a stable and decent 13:07.19, but considering the track record stood 10 seconds faster, it seemed gold was out of the question. In the next pair, Bergsma and Swings raced each other. Bergsma departed with a 12:45 target time, which he managed with 12:44.45, a new lowland World Record and also a new Olympic Record. Swings had kept up with De Jong’s pace through 8,000 m, but eventually placed fifth. Bergsma’s time was comparable to Kramer’s 12:45.09 at the Dutch Olympic trials, which meant that the final pair would be exciting. Kramer took off a bit slower than Bergsma, but moved into first after 3,200 m. Kramer held on to his lead up until 3 laps before the finish, although gradually losing his lead in the previous laps. Knowing he couldn’t match Bergsma’s fast final laps, Kramer slowed down a little to finish second in 12:49.02. After the race, Kramer revealed he had been suffering from a recurring back injury since the Olympic 5,000 m. For the fourth time in Sochi, the speed skating podium was swept by Dutch skaters - a record in any winter sport.

Jorrit Bergsma had hoped to compete at the 2010 Olympics. Competing in the Dutch marathon skating circuit, with races of 40 km, his coach Jillert Anema noticed that Bergsma and several of his team mates should be able to beat the best team pursuit squads. As they were unable to enter the strong Dutch national team, Anema contacted the federation of Kazakhstan. Bergsma won the Kazakh national title in late 2009, but the necessary paperwork to also compete internationally was not completed in time, and Bergsma and his teammates gave up on their dream of Vancouver. Fortunately for Bergsma, his Olympic dreams still came through four years later.