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| Event type

1,500 metres, Men

Date16 February 1994 — 14:00
StatusOlympic
LocationOlympiahall, Hamar
Participants44 from 17 countries
Olympic Record 1:52.06 WR / André Hoffmann GDR / 20 February 1988
StarterSvein Inge StrugstadNOR
RefereeKnut LudahlNOR

After his dominant win in the 5000 m, Johann Olav Koss was heavily favored to win the 1,500 m as well. Koss was the defending champion, and he had won the pre-Olympic World Cup on the Hamar rink back in December. But he faced stiff competition from both his own country and the Netherlands. Koss’ team mate Ådne Søndrål, had won two World Cup races earlier in the season, and had finished second behind Koss in the Albertville Games. Of the Dutch skaters, Falko Zandstra and Rintje Ritsma had the best chances. Zandstra had won the Davos World Cup, while Ritsma had won the distance at the European Championships in January in Hamar. Ritsma had then bettered the world record - which still dated from the 1988 Olympics - to 1:51.60.

Koss was the first of these favorites to race. Skating a final lap that was unheard of (29.38), he managed to beat Ritsma’s world best mark by 0.31 seconds, setting it at 1:51.29. Next up was Søndrål. While a sprinter, he couldn’t match Koss’s splits early on, and never came close to his compatriot’s time, despite setting a personal best of 1:53.13. In the next pair, it was Zandstra. At the bell, the Dutch World Allround Champion was about equal with Koss, but his final lap was over a second slower than the Norwegian’s. Ritsma, going in pair six, met with the same fate. Leading by two tenths at 1,100 m, he lost a lot in the last 400 m, ending up with 1:51.99, slightly outside his own former world record. At the victory press conference, Johann Olav Koss announced he would donate his victory reward to the victims of the war in Bosnia, and especially Sarajevo, the host of the 1984 Winter Olympics that had been ravaged by war.

PosPairCompetitorNOCTime
12OJohann Olav KossNOR1:51.29GoldWR
26IRintje RitsmaNED1:51.99Silver
35OFalko ZandstraNED1:52.38Bronze
44IÅdne SøndrålNOR1:53.13
511OAndrey AnufriyenkoRUS1:53.16
68IPeter AdebergGER1:53.50
74ONeal MarshallCAN1:53.56
81OMartin HersmanNED1:53.59
919OJeroen StraathofNED1:53.70
103OYuriy ShulhaUKR1:54.28
1112OPaweł JaroszekPOL1:54.49
123IRoberto SighelITA1:54.51
1310IOlaf ZinkeGER1:54.66
1415IKjell StorelidNOR1:54.69
151IToru AoyanagiJPN1:54.85
1615OOleg PavlovRUS1:54.90
172IMichael HadschieffAUT1:55.09
1818OSteinar JohansenNOR1:55.21
1913IThomas KummGER1:55.35
2020IMichael SpielmannGER1:55.36
216OYukinori MiyabeJPN1:55.56
=228ORoland BrunnerAUT1:55.78
=2216ODave TamburrinoUSA1:55.78
2417OPat KellyCAN1:55.81
257ODanny KahAUS1:56.04
2620OZsolt BalóROU1:56.44
2714IToshihiko ItokawaJPN1:56.67
2818IKevin ScottCAN1:56.68
295IRadik BikchentayevKAZ1:56.73
3012IVadim SayutinKAZ1:57.03
3110ODezideriu HorvathROU1:57.07
327IBrian WanekUSA1:57.09
3321OSergey TsybenkoKAZ1:57.43
3422ODavide CartaITA1:57.46
3517IVitali NovichenkaBLR1:57.50
3622IPhillip TahmindjisAUS1:57.59
379INathaniel MillsUSA1:58.43
3821IPat BouchardCAN1:59.83
3919IKC BoutietteUSA2:00.59
409OPaweł ZygmuntPOL2:05.21fall
4116ILee Jae-SikKOR2:20.60fall
DNF11IAlessandro De TaddeiITAfall
DNF13OLiu YanfeiCHNfall
DNF14OArtur SzafrańskiPOLfall