Speed Skating 2022/Men's 5000 metre

Men's 5000 metre
General information
Sport	Speed Skating 2022
Date	6 February 2022
Competitors	20 athletes
Venue	Beijing National Speed Skating Oval
Previous medalists
Gold	Sven Kramer
Silver	Ted-Jan Bloemen
Bronze	Sverre Lunde Pedersen
Conditions
Length	5000 metres
Medalists
	Nils van der Poel
	Patrick Roest
	Hallgeir Engebraaten

The men's 5000 metre of Speed Skating 2022 during the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 6 February 2022 in the Beijing National Speed Skating Oval. With 20 athletes competing, the event was won by Nils van der Poel from Sweden, with Patrick Roest from Netherlands taking the silver medal and Hallgeir Engebraaten from Norway taking bronze.

Format

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

Preview

Twenty athletes qualified for the event with Nils van der Poel as the outstanding favorite for the title. The Swede was the reigning world champion in both the 5000 metres and the 10,000 metres and held the world record in both distances. However, there were plenty of other big names in the field that could contend for the medals. Three-time Olympic champion in the event Sven Kramer was also featured in the field but competed in one of the last races of his career, Ted-Jan Bloemen won the silver medal in Pyeongchang and won the world championships in 2020, Jorrit Bergsma won a bronze medal in the event in Sochi in 2014, and Patrick Roest took silver at the world championships in 2019 and 2021. Other medal contenders and potential outsiders also included Bart Swings, Ruslan Zakharov, Alexander Rumyantsev, and Patrick Beckert.

Debutants Ethan Cepuran and Hallgeir Engebraaten were the youngest athletes in the field, with Cepuran yet to turn 22 years old. Emery Lehman, top favorite Nils van der Poel, and Seitaro Ichinohe were next in line being three years older than the Norwegian, with all three having had prior Olympic experience in 2018. Other competitors with prior Olympic experience were 2014 bronze medalist Jorrit Bergsma, defending Olympic champion Sven Kramer, and defending silver medalist Ted-Jan Bloemen, the oldest three athletes in the field, just ahead of Alexander Rumyantsev and Ruslan Zakharov. Sven Kramer was due to start at his fifth Olympic Games, having competed back in 2006, while Patrick Beckert was the only other competitor with three previous appearances at the Olympic Games. Felix Rijhnen, Michele Malfatti, Ethan Cepuran, and Hallgeir Engebraaten were the only athletes to make their Olympic debuts, with Ruslan Zakharov making his first appearance in speed skating, after having competed in short track in 2010 and 2014.

Current Records

Record	Date	Nat.	Name	Time
WR	3 December 2021		Nils van der Poel	6:01.56
OR	11 February 2018		Sven Kramer	6:09.76
TR	7 April 2021		Muhamaiti Hanahati	6:37.80

Results

Nils van der Poel broke the hegemony of Sven Kramer in the event by skating to gold in a new Olympic record, with the Dutchman having won the three previous editions of the event. Van der Poel won his first Olympic medal after having finished fourteenth in 2018, while silver medalist Patrick Roest won his third Olympic medal after his performance in 2018 with silver in the 1500 metres and bronze in the team pursuit. Hallgeir Engebraaten took his first Olympic medal in his first-ever Olympic appearance, and secured another bronze medal in the event after Sverre Lunde Pedersen won bronze in 2018. Sergei Trofimov finished just behind the podium in his second Olympic appearance, with Jorrit Bergsma finishing fifth in the event he won bronze in in 2014 but failed to qualify for in 2018.

Result	Athlete	Nationality	Time
	Nils van der Poel	Sweden	6:08.84	OR
	Patrick Roest	Netherlands	6:09.31
	Hallgeir Engebraaten	Norway	6:09.88
4	Sergei Trofimov	ROC	6:10.27
5	Jorrit Bergsma	Netherlands	6:13.18
6	Alexander Rumyantsev	ROC	6:15.02
7	Bart Swings	Belgium	6:16.90
8	Davide Ghiotto	Italy	6:16.92
9	Sven Kramer	Netherlands	6:17.04
10	Ted-Jan Bloemen	Canada	6:19.11
11	Patrick Beckert	Germany	6:19.58
12	Seitaro Ichinohe	Japan	6:19.81
13	Felix Rijhnen	Germany	6:19.86
14	Ruslan Zakharov	ROC	6:21.00
15	Michele Malfatti	Italy	6:21.47
16	Emery Lehman	United States	6:21.80
17	Ethan Cepuran	United States	6:25.97
18	Livio Wenger	Switzerland	6:27.01
19	Viktor Hald Thorup	Denmark	6:28.87
20	Andrea Giovannini	Italy	6:30.11