Olympic Speed Skating

I choose to blog about the Netherlands taking their first gold medal in men’s 500m speed skating. Taking gold was not all they had in mind, also they swept the podium taking first, second, and third. Michel Mulder took first place, while teammate Jan Smeekens taking second with a loss of only 12 thousandths of a second. Third place went to Michel Mulder’s twin brother Ronald Mulder who took bronze. The 2014 SOCHI Olympics men’s 500m was dominated by Netherlands. Turns out when Smeekens finished the race the scoreboard showed him winning the race by a thousandth of a second. His reaction to the scoreboard was a clear indication that he believed he won the gold medal, but the score was quickly corrected to second place. This seemed to be very controversial to me, but not everyone else. If it were two different countries that were fighting for the gold medal I think that it would have caused a much bigger dilemma. Being that all three top spots were taken by the Netherlands wasn’t as big of deal. The Mulder twins have got to be satisfied with how they represented their family and country, it is not too often that brothers, let alone twins even get a shot at the Olympics. This wasn’t the only thing the only event that the Dutch had swept the competition. In the men’s 5,000m race they also went one, two and three. In the women’s 3,000m race Irene Wust took the gold medal as well. The orange seem to be in control of the 2014 SOCHI Olympics Speed Skating. Watching these events completely surprised me, because I did not except the Dutch to compete at such a high level in the speed skating. I thought that one of the other power house countries was going to take these medals. For example Canada who is known for their hockey and skating, or Russia who dominates in ice sports, even the United States I believed had a better chance. Well I was wrong, and now I know that ice hockey and speed skating are two completely different events. The way that they skate, and the strides they take are different. In ice hockey you want quick strides to get going as fast as possible in the shortest time, while speed skating is almost the opposite. They want to get going fast and maintain the speed, taking as long strides as possible.