News Analysis: Which of the world records for speed skating or short track speed skating is more "valuable"?

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 11 News Analysis: Which of the world records of speed skating and short track speed skating is more "valuable"?

Xinhua News Agency reporters Wang Jingyu, Yue Ranran, Li Dian, He Leijing, and Luo Xin

In the speed skating and short track speed skating competitions of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics held on the 11th, Sweden's Van der Poul and the Netherlands' Schultin broke the world record. What is the difference between the world records of the two events? Which project has a more "valuable" world record?

When it comes to this, we must first look at the rules of the two projects. Speed skating is one of the oldest Winter Olympic events, and it was officially contested at the first Winter Olympics in 1924. Similar to the track and field events of the Summer Olympics, the biggest feature of speed skating is "racing against time". In most of the minor events of speed skating, each group has two runners (also because there are less than one person skating), and the two skate on their respective tracks, with plenty of space, and each lap needs to exchange tracks. After all the runners have finished skating, they will be ranked according to the time spent. Because it is a "race against time", breaking the world record is the most important way to prove the strength of athletes. Under normal circumstances, if an athlete can break the speed skating world record, it will basically lock in the champion of the current race, unless someone breaks the record immediately.

In the speed skating competition of the Beijing Winter Olympics held at the "Ice Ribbon" on the 11th, Van der Poul broke the men's 10,000m world record of 12 minutes 32.95 seconds held by himself with a time of 12 minutes 30.74 seconds, the original record he set on February 14, 2021 at the ice rink in Heerenveen, the Netherlands. This is the first world record to be born in the "Ice Ribbon" so far, which shows that the pre-race operation team's goal of creating "the fastest ice" is not a lie, and Van der Poule also defended his position as the king of the middle and long distance events of speed skating with this world record.

Short track speed skating is different from speed skating. First of all, the short track speed skating competition is in the form of a knockout round, with several players advancing in each round. Secondly, short-track speed skating is a multi-person race that takes the lead by squeezing, grabbing, and overtaking in a relatively small shared track space. Third, it is the rank that determines whether a player advances or scores in the final, not the time it takes to complete the competition. Especially in the middle and long distance events, in order to achieve the purpose of finally taking the lead in passing the finish line, the athletes who lead the skate often deliberately press the speed skating for a certain period of time to preserve physical strength and control the rhythm. At the same time, because the leading players will adopt various strategies to limit the opponent's overtaking, the players who are temporarily in the backward position cannot fully show their absolute speed, and often want to be fast and cannot. In contrast, the world record in short track speed skating competitions shows more of a "relatively fastest" when multiple people compete for each other than the "absolute fastest" of solo skating. Although the current short track speed skating competition is also skating faster and faster, the competition is becoming more and more fierce, but the biggest feature of short track speed skating competition is still to compare with people and fight with people, rather than simply "racing against time".

It is for the reasons mentioned above that the industry generally believes that the world record for speed skating is higher and more "valuable". Moreover, setting a world record in a speed skating competition has a higher correlation with winning the championship.

Although the world record for short track speed skating is not so high, the absolute strength of the short track speed skater is still the core competitiveness of short track speed skaters. Although breaking the world record at a certain stage of the competition does not mean that he or she will have the last laugh and win the championship, it can also reflect its strength and competitive status to a large extent.

In the women's 1000m final of the short track speed skating at the Beijing Winter Olympics on the evening of the 11th, the winner happened to be the Dutch player Schulting, who broke the world record in the quarter-finals. Her time in the final was nearly two seconds slower than the world record she had just set, but that didn't stop her from winning the gold medal. Conversely, if Schulting doesn't cross the finish line first in the final, the world record she broke in the quarter-finals doesn't make much practical sense, as has happened before.

Whether it is the world record for short track speed skating or the world record for speed skating, behind it is the sweat and tears of athletes who have been training hard for a long time. So, although it seems that the gold content is slightly different, these rare records still deserve our sincere applause and cheers for them. (End)