Speed Skating 2022/Men's mass start

Men's mass start
General information
Sport	Speed Skating 2022
Date	19 February 2022
Competitors	30 athletes
Venue	Beijing National Speed Skating Oval
Previous medalists
Gold	Lee Seung-hoon
Silver	Bart Swings
Bronze	Koen Verweij
Conditions
Length	6400 metres
Medalists
	Bart Swings
	Chung Jae-won
	Lee Seung-hoon

The men's mass start of Speed Skating 2022 during the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 19 February 2022 in the Beijing National Speed Skating Oval. With 30 athletes competing, the event was won by Bart Swings from Belgium, with Chung Jae-won from South Korea taking the silver medal and Lee Seung-hoon from South Korea taking bronze.

Format

The competition exists out of two separate rounds. Both rounds consist of 16 rounds of 400 metres, with the winner of each race receiving 60 points, followed by the best finishers receiving 40 and 20 points. Every four rounds, additional sprints are done, of which the top 3 receive 5, 3, and 1 point, respectively. The athlete with the most points after 16 rounds wins. If multiple speed skaters are tied on the same amount of points, the one with the fastest time is ranked higher.

Preview

Thirty athletes qualified for the event with Bart Swings as the leader of the World Cup standings and one of the big favorites for the title. Andrea Giovannini finished in the top 5 of each World Cup event in the season leading up to the Olympic Games, similar to Ruslan Zakharov. The Korean representation of Chung Jae-won and defending champion Lee Seung-hoon was also very strong, with other potential medal contenders and outsiders including Antoine Gelinas-Beaulieu, Jorrit Bergsma, Ian Quinn, and Kristian Ulekleiv.

Peder Kongshaug was the youngest competitor in the field, just ahead of Chung Jae-won and Daniil Aldoshkin as the three athletes to have been born in the 21st century. Gabriel Odor was almost a year older than Kongshaug, with home competitor Ning Zhongyan another year apart. Zbigniew Brodka was the veteran of the field age the age of 37, but despite four Olympic appearances, not the most experienced. He was over a year older than Jorrit Bergsma, Joey Mantia, Haralds Silovs, and Sven Kramer, who were all born within three months from each other. Kramer was the only one in the field to have started at five different editions of the Olympic Games, though Brodka, Silovs, and Lee Seung-hoon followed with four. Out of thirty competitors, twelve made their Olympic debuts.

Summary

Semifinals

Semifinal 1 Results
Rank	Nat.	Athlete	Points	Time
1		Kristian Ulekleiv	60	7:56.67
2		Bart Swings	44	7:56.74
3		Ning Zhongyan	20	7:56.75
4		Chung Jae-won	12	7:56.76
5		Daniil Aldoshkin	6	7:56.83
6		Antoine Gelinas-Beaulieu	3	7:56.93
7		Sven Kramer	3	7:58.22
8		Seitaro Ichinohe	3	7:58.54
9		Haralds Silovs	3	7:59.50
10		Dmitriy Morozov	2	8:08.73
11		Michele Malfatti	1	8:02.09
12		Stefan Due Schmidt	0	7:58.01
13		Ian Quinn	0	7:58.03
14		Zbigniew Brodka	0	8:17.49
-		Felix Rijhnen	DQ

Semifinal 2 Results
Rank	Nat.	Athlete	Points	Time
1		Andrea Giovannini	60	7:43.58
2		Lee Seung-hoon	40	7:43.63
3		Livio Wenger	20	7:44.08
4		Gabriel Odor	10	7:44.28
5		Jordan Belchos	8	7:46.05
6		Ryosuke Tsuchiya	7	7:48.43
7		Joey Mantia	6	7:44.37
8		Jorrit Bergsma	3	7:44.42
9		Peter Michael	2	7:58.04
10		Viktor Hald Thorup	1	8:21.94
11		Artur Janicki	0	7:44.48
12		Wang Haotian	0	7:46.30
13		Ignat Golovatsiuk	0	7:53.59
14		Peder Kongshaug	0	6:55.43
15		Ruslan Zakharov	0	2:49.52

Final

Final Results
Rank	Nat.	Athlete	Points	Time
1		Bart Swings	63	7:47.11
2		Chung Jae-won	40	7:47.18
3		Lee Seung-hoon	20	7:47.204
4		Joey Mantia	10	7:47.206
5		Daniil Aldoshkin	6	7:47.59
6		Ryosuke Tsuchiya	6	7:58.82
7		Livio Wenger	4	7:47.86
8		Seitaro Ichinohe	3	7:48.56
9		Jorrit Bergsma	3	7:50.25
10		Gabriel Odor	2	8:10.46
11		Andrea Giovannini	0	7:47.93
12		Ning Zhongyan	0	7:48.07
13		Jordan Belchos	0	7:48.14
14		Kristian Ulekleiv	0	7:48.52
15		Antoine Gelinas-Beaulieu	0	8:13.35
16		Sven Kramer	0	7:13.37

Results

Bart Swings won his second Olympic medal, after winning silver in the same event in 2018, as the first Belgian athlete to win multiple medals at the Winter Olympic Games, and also became the first gold medalist for Belgium at the Winter Olympic Games since Pierre Baugniet and Micheline Lannoy in figure skating in 1948. Chung Jae-won also won his second Olympic medal, after winning silver in the team pursuit in 2018, and his team mate and 2018 Olympic champion Lee Seung-hoon won his sixth Olympic medal in four editions, completing his set with his first bronze medal. Joey Mantia just missed out on his second Olympic medal in four days by two-thousands of a second, after he won bronze in the team pursuit, while Daniil Aldoshkin was the best debutant on place five. Ryosuke Tsuchiya recorded his best individual result at the Olympic Games after finishing sixth, and Livio Wenger wasn't able to improve on his fourth-place result of 2018 by finishing on seventh place.

Result	Athlete	Nationality
	Bart Swings	Belgium
	Chung Jae-won	South Korea
	Lee Seung-hoon	South Korea
4	Joey Mantia	United States
5	Daniil Aldoshkin	ROC
6	Ryosuke Tsuchiya	Japan
7	Livio Wenger	Switzerland
8	Seitaro Ichinohe	Japan
9	Jorrit Bergsma	Netherlands
10	Gabriel Odor	Austria
11	Andrew Giovannini	Italy
12	Ning Zhongyan	China
13	Jordan Belchos	Canada
14	Kristian Ulekleiv	Norway
15	Antoine Gelinas-Beaulieu	Canada
16	Sven Kramer	Netherlands
17	Haralds Silovs	Latvia
18	Peter Michael	New Zealand
19	Dmitriy Morozov	Kazakhstan
20	Michele Malfatti	Italy
21	Viktor Hald Thorup	Denmark
22	Artur Janicki	Poland
23	Wang Haotian	China
24	Ignat Golovatsiuk	Belarus
25	Stefan Due Schmidt	Denmark
26	Ian Quinn	United States
27	Zbigniew Brodka	Poland
28	Peder Kongshaug	Norway
29	Ruslan Zakharov	ROC
-	Felix Rijhnen	Germany