Speed Skating 2018/Men's 5000 metre

Men's 5000 metre
General information
Sport	Speed Skating 2018
Date	11 February 2018
Competitors	22 athletes
Venue	Gangneung Oval
Previous medalists
Gold	Sven Kramer
Silver	Jan Blokhuijsen
Bronze	Jorrit Bergsma
Conditions
Temperature	16°C / 60.8°F
Length	5000 metres
Medalists
	Sven Kramer
	Ted-Jan Bloemen
	Sverre Lunde Pedersen

The men's 5000 metre of Speed Skating 2018 during the 2018 Winter Olympics was held on 11 February 2018 in the Gangneung Oval. With 22 athletes competing, the event was won by Sven Kramer from Netherlands, with Ted-Jan Bloemen from Canada taking the silver medal and Sverre Lunde Pedersen from Norway taking bronze.

Format

The competition exists out of eleven head-to-head races of 5000 metres. The competitor with the fastest time is the winner.

Preview

Twenty-two athletes qualified for the event, and the absolute favorite was Sven Kramer, after winning this event twice in a row, although his biggest rival would be Ted-Jan Bloemen, who broke the world record only one year earlier. Although Kramer won almost every 5000 metres race he appeared in, he was just defeated by Bob de Vries during the national trials. Jan Blokhuijsen, who won silver four years before, and Lee Seung-hoon, who won the silver medal in 2010, were also competing. Other medal contenders included Patrick Beckert and Sverre Lunde Pedersen.

Bob de Vries was the oldest athlete to participate, making his Olympic debut at the 5000 metres, while Emery Lehman was the youngest competitor, despite already appearing at Sochi 2014. Six athletes participated at least twice before, with Olympic medalists Sven Kramer and Havard Bokko competing since Torino 2006. Out of the reigning Olympic medalists, Jorrit Bergsma only competed in other distances, with Kramer and Jan Blokhuijsen attempting to defend their Olympic medals.

Current Records

Record	Date	Nat.	Name	Time
WR	10 December 2017		Ted-Jan Bloemen	6:01.86
OR	8 February 2014		Sven Kramer	6:10.76
TR	9 February 2017		Sven Kramer	6:06.82

Results

With eleven pairings in the competition, the first skater to set a good time was Seitaro Ichinohe, after Adrian Wielgat, Nils van der Poel, Ryosuke Tsuchiya, Emery Lehman, and Livio Wenger failed to impress. In pairing four, the first outsider would start, with Bob de Vries racing against Simen Spieler Nilsen. De Vries was able to beat favorite Sven Kramer in the Dutch national trials, and if he were to do it again, he would be able to win an Olympic medal. However, he had a slow start and couldn't recover from it, finishing behind Van der Poel from the first pairing. The last pairing before the break would see home favorite Lee Seung-hoon and Bart Swings, who both set a good time, over two seconds in front of Ichinohe, with Lee taking the lead. The two pairings after the break saw no one beating the times of Lee and Swings, with Havard Bokko, Davide Ghiotto, and Andrea Giovannini finishing 15 seconds behind Lee, and Alexis Contin 4 seconds behind.

With the medal contenders starting from pairing eight onwards, Peter Michael was the first speed skater to beat Lee's time, with Jan Blokhuijsen just finishing behind Swings. The ninth pairing included world record holder Ted-Jan Bloemen and outsider Sverre Lunde Pedersen, and they were able to take advantage of each other, finishing only 0.002 seconds apart, with Bloemen having the edge of the two. The penultimate race, with defending champion Sven Kramer against yet another outsider Patrick Beckert. With Kramer finishing in a new Olympic record, ensuring himself of a medal, his opponent was less fortunate, setting on ninth place. The last race with Nicola Tumolero and Moritz Geisreiter quickly looked like no threat to the medal contenders, eventually finishing eighth and twelfth.

Sven Kramer won his eighth Olympic medal in his fourth appearance, by becoming the first speed skater to win the same event three consecutive times. He also beat the Olympic record that was set by himself four years prior. Behind him, Ted-Jan Bloemen won the silver medal as debutant at the Olympic Games, while Sverre Lunde Pedersen also received his first medal. Peter Michael missed out on the first podium for New Zealand in speed skating by around 2 seconds, while Lee Seung-hoon had to wait a bit longer to win his fourth Olympic medal.

Result	Athlete	Nationality	Time
	Sven Kramer	Netherlands	6:09.76	OR
	Ted-Jan Bloemen	Canada	6:11.616
	Sverre Lunde Pedersen	Norway	6:11.618
4	Peter Michael	New Zealand	6:14.07
5	Lee Seung-hoon	South Korea	6:14.15
6	Bart Swings	Belgium	6:14.57
7	Jan Blokhuijsen	Netherlands	6:14.75
8	Nicola Tumolero	Italy	6:15.48	PR
9	Seitaro Ichinohe	Japan	6:16.55
10	Patrick Beckert	Germany	6:17.91
11	Alexis Contin	France	6:18.13
12	Moritz Geisreiter	Germany	6:18.34
13	Simen Spieler Nilsen	Norway	6:18.39
14	Nils van der Poel	Sweden	6:19.06	PR
15	Bob de Vries	Netherlands	6:22.26
16	Ryosuke Tsuchiya	Japan	6:22.45
17	Livio Wenger	Switzerland	6:24.16
18	Havard Bokko	Norway	6:24.50
19	Davide Ghiotto	Italy	6:29.25
20	Andrea Giovannini	Italy	6:30.71
21	Emery Lehman	United States	6:31.16
22	Adrian Wielgat	Poland	6:31.71