Japan's Shimizu leads in Olympic 500-meter speed skate

February 9, 1998

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From the Olympics Toward Tomorrow

Japan's Shimizu leads in Olympic 500-meter speed skate

Hiroyasu Shimizu

(M-Wave, Nagano City)
16:30- Start

World record holder Hiroyasu Shimizu of Japan blazed into the first-day lead Monday of the Olympic men's 500 meters speed skating race, leading Canadian Kevin Overland by a mere two-100ths of a second.

Overland energized the M-Wave indoor oval crowd by setting a new Olympic record of 35.78 seconds. But in the next pairing, Shimizu exploded from the start, posting the day's best 100-meter split of 9.66, before stopping the clock in 35.76 seconds.

Shimizu's time was 0.37 second off his two-year-old world record set in Calgary, Canada. The 23-year-old from Hokkaido refused to smile after crossing the finish line, but acknowledged the crowd at the M-Wave indoor oval with waves of his arm.

With Tuesday's race remaining, Shimizu put himself in the driver's seat to win Japan's first-ever Olympic gold medal in the sport. Japan has won Olympic medals in every men's 500 meters event since 1984, but none of them gold.

American Casey FitzRandolph is in third place after clocking a personal best of 35.81 seconds, also inside the old Olympic record of 36.33 set by Russia's Aleksandr Golubev four years ago in Lillehammer, Norway.

Canadian Jeremy Wotherspoon, the current World Cup leader at this distance, skated 36.04 seconds to stand in seventh place. Japan's Manabu Horii, bronze medalist at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, clocked 36.37 seconds for 12th.

The skater with the fastest composite time over Monday and Tuesday's races will win the Olympic gold. (Kyodo News)

Results of speed skating men's 500 meters after the first race Monday in the 18th Olympic Winter Games at M-Wave indoor oval, Nagano:

1. Hiroyasu Shimizu, Japan 35.76 seconds (Olympic record)

2. Kevin Overland, Canada 35.78

3. Casey FitzRandolph, U.S. 35.81

4. Sylvain Bouchard, Canada 35.90

5. Erben Wennemars, Netherlands 35.96

5. Patrick Bouchard, Canada 35.96

7. Jeremy Wotherspoon, Canada 36.04

8. Kim Yoon Man, South Korea 36.13

9. Lee Kyu Hyuk, South Korea 36.14

10. Ermanno Ioriatti, Italy 36.30

11. Grunde Njos, Norway 36.32

12. Toshiyuki Kuroiwa, Japan 36.37

12. Manabu Horii, Japan 36.37

14. Roger Strom, Norway 36.53

15. Sergey Klevchenya, Russia 36.56

15. Michael Kuenzel, Germany 36.56

17. Janne Hanninen, Finland 36.58

17. Jaegal Sung Yeol, South Korea 36.58

19. Hiroaki Yamakage, Japan 36.61

20. Jan Bos, Netherlands 36.66

-----

25 Liu Hongbo, China 36.77

27 Li Yu, China 36.79

29 Vadim Shakshakbayev, Kazakstan 36.87

33 Dai Dengwen, China 37.03

35 Kim Jin Soo, South Korea 37.19

36 Vladimir Klepinin, Kazakstan 37.22

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