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From the Olympics Toword Tomorrow
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Shimizu one race away from Olympic skating gold
Hiroyasu Shimizu, the world's fastest man on speed skates, delivered a powerful performance around the M-Wave indoor oval Monday, clocking a new Olympic record to lead the men's 500 meters by the slimmest of margins with Tuesday's race remaining.
Shimizu's rink record time of 35.76 seconds gave him a 0.02 second lead over upset-hungry Canadian Kevin Overland. America's Casey FitzRandolph is third after skating 35.81 seconds as the top 11 skaters all beat the old Olympic record of 36.33.
This is the first Olympics in which two races are being held in both the men's and women's 500-meter events. The skater with the fastest composite time over Monday and Tuesday's races will win the Olympic gold.
Japan's Manabu Horii and Toshiyuki Kuroiwa, who both own Olympic medals in this event, had a frustrating day at the rink. Both clocked 36.37 seconds for a share of 12th place.
But it was an even more disappointing day for pre-Olympic favorites Jeremy Wotherspoon and Jan Bos, who raced side-by-side in the second-to-last pairing.
Wotherspoon, Canada's national record holder and winner of seven World Cup races so far this season, could only manage 36.04 seconds to stand in seventh place.
Dutchman Bos, the reigning world sprint champion, apparently was rattled after committing a false start. In the end, he clocked 36.66 seconds to drop way back in 20th.
''He made too many mistakes,'' said Bos' coach Peter Mueller, the man who guided American Olympic champions Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen.
Mueller was among several coaches who complained about a number of false starts called by American race starter Stanley Strzykalski when it appeared on the television replay that there was in fact no such violation.
But Mueller said he would not file a protest, saying ''He's the Olympic race starter, how are you going to get rid of him?''
Throughout the season, Shimizu and his teammates had stood largely in the shadow of the Canadian and Dutch rivals who dominated the World Cup circuit on slap skates.
All of that changed Monday. Shimizu, who switched to the revolutionary blades in November, flashed through the first 100 meters in the day's best split of 9.66 seconds, accelerated strong down the back straight, and kept momentum to the finish.
The capacity crowd exploded into wild cheers and flag-waving, and Shimizu acknowledged his fans with slow waves of his arm.
But Shimizu later admitted he was not completely satisfied.
''My body was stiff on the whole,'' said Shimizu, who is gunning for Japan's first Olympic gold in the sport. ''The real race starts from here on, and the others will be chasing after me. The key is whether I can stay relaxed during the entire race Tuesday.''
Even while gliding at speeds of up to 50 kilometers of hour, Shimizu said he actually saw faces in the stands while going around the final bend.
''By looking at the crowd, it meant that I wasn't completely concentrating,'' Shimizu said. The words suggested that on Tuesday he might take a crack at his own world record of 35.39 seconds, set two years ago at the Calgary Olympic Oval in Canada. (Kyodo News)
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Copyright 1998 The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun