Canada can't keep up with the Netherlands in men's 1,500-metre long-track speed skating

Of all the sports at the Winter Games, long-track speed skating comes the closest to simulating flight.

That may not sound right, given how many of the other pursuits—ski jumping, snowboarding, freestyle skiing, figure skating, to name a few—involve actual moments in the air, whereas the skaters here are always ice-bound. But seen live, there’s something about the gliding, silent speed and control that looks totally gravity-free.

Kyle Parrott, the first of three Canadian skaters in the 1,500-metre race today at the Richmond Olympic Oval, appears in the fifth of the 19 pairings on the schedule. A few minutes before he’s due up, I notice him on the inside warmup track, using the sound of the start gun for other pairings to mime his own jump off the line.

This doesn’t help Parrott as much as he’d probably hoped. He’s up against the youngest racer in the men’s competition, lanky 17-year-old Longjiang Sun of China, who simply wears Parrott down in the final lap.

Three pairings later, long-distance specialist Sven Kramer of the Netherlands, winner of the 5,000-metre event on the opening day of competition last week, takes his own shot. He moves into first place with his run, but you can see how gruelling this three-and-three-quarter-lap distance is, even for such a powerful athlete. It’s written on his face as he crosses the finish line, just to my left.

AFTER THE BREAK in the middle of the proceedings, the 8,000-plus spectators get set for the quicker half of the field.

By the end of the 12th pairing, only a hundredth of a second separates first-place Simon Kuipers of the Netherlands from second-place Mikael Flygind Larsen of Norway.

But the first of the real contenders shows up in the 14th: Korean sprinter Tae-Bum Mo (that’s not a typo), already the winner of gold and silver here at the Games. Compact and focused, Mo takes nearly half a second off the best time to that point.

That’s the mark facing Fort St. John’s Denny Morrison when he comes to the line in the 16th, to thundering shouts and applause. Morrison is just a 10th of a second off the pace after the first lap, and dead even with Mo’s time after the second. The crowd is going ballistic as he enters the bell lap. But in the final turn, he’s caught by Ivan Skobrev of Russia, who skates into first by besting Mo’s time by just five hundredths of a second. Morrison can do no better than fifth overall.

Only Lucas Makowsky, who’ll race in the final pairing against American star Shani Davis, has any hope of bringing Canada a medal today, and it looks more and more like a long shot. The pace is rising fast with each pairing. The Netherlands’ Mark Tuitert and Norway’s Havard Bokko reset the leader board by powering into first and second, respectively.

This brings on Makowsky and event-favourite Davis to settle the final standings. The crowd roar for each of them is loud—but not as loud as the one let out by the Dutch fans when Davis fails to match the time set down by Tuitert, who takes away the gold medal.

Man, those Dutch love their speed skating. And they’ve got plenty of world-beating reasons to celebrate.

Photo gallery: Men's 1,500 metre speed skating.