Will the gold in the 1000 meters today go to Thomas Krol or Kaj Verbij and will there still be ultimate success in Beijing for someone from the Jumbo-Visma team? Or is Hein Otterspeer, rider of competitor Reggeborgh, able to ride the race of his life?
View the program of the Dutch below:
* = medal chances for Team NL
Friday February 18
- †09:30 am: speed skating, 1000m (m): Kai Verbij, Thomas Krol, Hein Otterspeer
Sign up for the Telesport newsletter and receive the latest Olympic news daily.
Hein Otterspeer in shape
Otterspeer is 33 years old and will make his Olympic debut. He thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and his teammates in recent weeks. ,,At first I couldn’t really watch the Olympic rings because I had only just missed the Games a few times. I looked at it with frustration, but now I see those rings all around me and I can embrace them.”
Last week he sympathized intensely with the successes of teammates Ireen Wüst and Kjeld Nuis, who both won gold. ,,It was the first Olympic races where I was live. It’s really cool when you see your teammates win. Ireen set the perfect race and a day later Kjeld does exactly the same. Then I sit in the stands with goosebumps.”
Ottenspeer himself feels in good shape and can’t wait to start: ,,I feel in everything that the sharpness is going in the right direction. Everything you do then goes very well, you feel light and you feel free.”
The three Dutch favorites start today in the last three stages of the Olympic 1000 meters. In the thirteenth stage, Krol competes against Norwegian Havard Lorentzen and then Otterspeer takes on the Chinese Ning Zhongyan. In the final stage Verbij skates against Canadian Laurent Dubreuil. The 1000 meters starts today at 9.30 am (Dutch time).
Scheme
- 1. Tatsuya Shinhama – Damian Zurek
- 2. Dmitry Morozov – Austin Klebag
- 3. Wataru Morishige – Bjorn Magnussen
- 4. Piotr Michalski – Ziwen Lian
- 5. David Bosa – Denis Kuzin
- 6. Pavel Kulizhnikov – Mathias Voste
- 7. Jordan Stolz – Min-Seok Kim
- 8. Antoine Gélinas Beaulieu – Joel Dufter
- 9. Ryota Kojima – Allan Dahl Johansson (followed by mop break)
- 10. Min-Kyu Cha – Cornelius Kersten
- 11. Marten Liiv – Connor Howe
- 12. Ignat Golovatsiuk – Viktor Mushtakov
- 13. THOMAS KROL – Håvard Lorentzen
- 14. Zhongyan Ning – HEIN OTTERSPEER
- 15. Laurent Dubreuil – KAI VERBEY
Dutch class apart
The Dutch men caused a sensation this season by having the podium colored orange at almost every international 1000 meters. At the World Cup battle in Poland, Otterspeer won and Krol and Nuis took silver and bronze respectively. A week later in Norway, Krol was the fastest, at 0.02 second and 0.08 second respectively, followed by Verbij and Nuis. Afterwards, the World Cup in Salt Lake City followed, where Krol again took the victory. Nuis and Otterspeer finished right behind him.
At the last global showdown in Calgary, the Dutch toppers were absent. That is not to say that it is a certainty that the Orange sprinters will also dominate in Beijing on Friday, because the foreign guns were always very close and the Olympic Games always release special forces in athletes.
View the remaining program of the Dutch below:
* = medal chances for Team NL
Saturday 19 February
- 02:30 am: bobsleigh, 4-man heat 1: Ivo de Bruin, Jelen Franjic, Janko Franjic, Stephan Huis in ‘t Veld, Dennis Veenker
- 4:05 a.m.: bobsleigh, 4-man heat 2 14-30: bobsleigh, two-man (f) heat 4
- 08.00 o’clock: speed skating, mass start (m) SF: Jorrit Bergsma, Sven Kramer
- 8.45 am: speed skating, mass start (f) SF: Irene Schouten, Marijke Groenewoud
- *09:30 am: speed skating, mass start (m) F: Jorrit Bergsma, Sven Kramer
- *10.15 am: speed skating, mass start (f) F: Irene Schouten, Marijke Groenewoud
Sunday 20 February
- 02:30 am: bobsleigh, 4-man heat 3: Ivo de Bruin, Jelen Franjic, Janko Franjic, Stephan Huis in ‘t Veld, Dennis Veenker
- *04.20 am: bobsleigh, 4-man heat 4: De Bruin, Franjic, Franjic, Huis in ‘t Veld, Veenker
- 13.00: closing ceremony