Lucas Makowsky of Canada skates in the men's 1500 metres race at the World Cup Speed Skating competition in Hamar, Norway on November 21, 2009. (Terje Bendiksby/AFP/Getty Images) The first official speed skating event took place in 1863 in Oslo, and the first world championships were held in the Netherlands in 1889. The Dutch event featured 500-metre, 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 races — the same distances raced today in the men's all-round competitions. In 1892, the International Skating Union (ISU) was founded to oversee the organization of such events. This body still governs all major skating championships, including speed skating and figure skating.
In Canada, the first recorded skating race took place in 1854, when three British Army officers raced up the St. Lawrence River from Montreal to Quebec City. That same year, the first official speed skating championships were staged by the newly founded Amateur Skating Association of Canada (in 1960 renamed the Canadian Amateur Speed Skating Association). In 1897, Montreal hosted the World Speed Skating Championship, attended by Norway, Germany and Canada. Winnipeg's Jack McCulloch won the world title that year.
By 1906 a more rough-and-tumble version of speed skating had appeared in North America. Races were held on shorter tracks — often ice-hockey rinks — and as many as five skaters started at one time, compared to the more orderly two-at-a-time starts of long-track racing. This new format was called short-track speed skating. By 1921 separate short-track races were being organized in the U.S. and Canada.
The Olympic debut
Men's long-track speed skating debuted in 1924 at the first Olympic Winter Games in Chamonix, France. American Charles Jewtraw won the inaugural gold medal in the 500m race, but it was the Finns who dominated, led by Clas Thunberg, who won three gold medals between 1924 and 1928.
Canada's first Olympic speed skating medals came eight years later at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Olympics, with Alexander Hurd, Frank Stack and William Logan winning one silver and four bronze among them. Women's speed skating was classed as a demonstration event that year, and the Canadians won three medals, including a gold and silver by Jean Wilson. It would be another 28 years before women's speed skating would become an official Olympic event at the 1960 Winter Games in Squaw Valley, Calif.
In 1997, the introduction of the Dutch clap-skate into long-track speed skating revolutionized the sport. On clap-skates, the blade is hinged at the toe, rather than permanently set, allowing the full length of the blade to stay in contact with the ice longer with each stride. Increased contact between blade and ice allows for a more natural gait, and results in a significant increase in speed. Canadian speed skating stars Catriona Le May Doan and Jeremy Wotherspoon both switched to clap-skates. Using this new technology, LeMay Doan skated to a world record en route to her gold medal in the 500m sprint at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics.
Whatever the innovations, Dutch, Norwegian and American skaters have remained near the top of speed skating throughout its Olympic history, although Soviet skaters enjoyed a golden age in the 1960s, and Germany has produced a string of world beaters over the past two decades.
Heiden and company
After Clas Thunberg of Finland, Norway's Ivar Ballangrud was the next big individual star, winning four gold medals from 1928 to 1936. Lydia Skobilova of the Soviet Union was the first big women's star, winning six gold medals in 1960 and 1964. The only woman to approach that level of dominance since was American sprint queen Bonnie Blair, who won three 500m gold and two 1,000m gold from 1988 to 1994.
Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann of Germany celebrates her win and championship record in the women's 3000 metre race at the World Speed Skating Single Distance Championships at the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns, Utah. (George Frey/AFP/Getty Images)Le May Doan and Susan Auch, a two-time 500m silver medallist, helped make Canada a power in the women's sprints. The distance events in the 1990s were dominated by German women, led by Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann, who won eight medals, three of them gold, from 1992 to 1998, and Claudia Pechstein, winner of the last two 5,000m gold.
However, no one has dominated the sport the way American Eric Heiden did in 1980 at Lake Placid. Heiden swept all five men's events in one of the all-time greatest Olympic performances in any event, summer or winter.
Gaetan Boucher of Canada claimed a silver behind Heiden in the 1,000m in 1980, but at the next Olympics at Sarajevo, with Heiden retired, Boucher emerged as the biggest star of the men's events, winning gold in the 1,000m and 1,500m and a bronze in the 500m.
Boucher remains one of the top Canadian winter Olympians of all time, but the 1998 Games ushered in the current generation of Canadian speedsters.
In 2002, Canadian women were among the swiftest in Salt Lake City. Veteran Le May Doan won her second Olympic gold medal and multi-sport sensation Clara Hughes earned bronze in the women's 5000m. Winnipeg's Cindy Klassen also claimed a bronze in the women's 3000m race.
Team Canada carried its successful speedskating streak into the Torino 2006 Games as several athletes made it to the podium.
On the men's side, Arne Dankers, Steven Elm, Denny Morrison, Jason Parker and Justin Warsylewicz earned silver in the team pursuit, while the women captured medals in eight events.
Canadian Olympic queen Klassen led the way by earning five of the eight medals, including a gold 1,500m. Clara Hughes skated to victory in the 5000m, while Kristina Groves captured silver in the 1500m.
