5,000 metres, Women

With 5-time World Champion and world record holder Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann away on maternity leave, the Olympic gold in the 5,000 m seemed predestined for the 1994 and 1998 champion, Claudia Pechstein. Prior to the Games, she might have feared stiff competition from compatriot, Anni Friesinger, winner of the only 5,000 m World Cup race earlier in the season. But Friesinger had not done well in the Olympic 3,000 m, while Pechstein had won that race.

Instead competition for Pechstein came from two women who had only recently picked up speed skating again. Canadian Clara Hughes had been a speed skater before choosing a cycling career that earned her two Olympic bronze medals in the 1996 Games. She had picked up her old sport again in 2001, and had set a time of 7.00,10 at the Canadian Olympic Trials. Gretha Smit had been the surprise of the Dutch Olympic Trials. Dominant in women’s marathon skating, she had taken a stab at long track skating, and had overwhelmingly won the 3,000 m and 5,000 m at the selection competition.

Skating in the first pair, Smit shattered Niemann’s world record, which had been set in March 2001, lowering it to 6:49.22. Only in the sixth pair did Hughes manage to approach the time with 6:53.53, mainly due to her steady final laps. Undaunted by these times, Pechstein set off faster than Smit. This appeared to have cost her, as she fell behind the Dutchwoman at 1,800 m and started to lose more time in the ensuing laps. The gap increased to 2.76 seconds at 3,400 m, but Smit’s final 33 and 34-second laps left room for improvement. Pechstein seized that opportunity, turning around her deficit at the bell to a sizable margin of victory at the finish line.