Will Kramer Keep His Coach?

Sven Kramer, the 23 year old son of Yep Kramer, has had the dream for seven years to win the gold medal for speed skating. Making the world record of twelve minutes,41.69 seconds at Salt Lake City in 2007. But this Olympics, in the lead, Sven's coach told him to switch lanes and he did an illegal move and hopped over the cones and was disqualified. Sven was so mad at his coach for telling him to switch lanes while Kramer was in the lead. Kramer was angry at his coach because it cost him the gold medal for his country and for himself. Kramer forgave his coach, but I bet he will never forget that day when he almost, had that medal. Sven says that he forgives his coach and will be back in 2014.

Right now, in the lead the country with the most gold medals is the Netherlands with 3 gold medals,1 silver, and 3 bronze. The United States is in 5^th place with 1 gold medal, 2 silver, and 1 bronze.

Speed skating was originally from Holland in the 13^th century. For most of the people, skates were their transportation. There were skates on wooden soles. Then the competitive racing started in 1676 in Holland. In the 19^th century the Dutch shared speed skating with other Europeans. In the beginning of the sport only men could compete, but in 1932 women were finally able to join the sport of speed skating.

The basics of the sport is to skate around a 400 meter oval ice rink counter-clockwise. The skater on the outside lane would do a right-a-way at the crossover, which means to switch lanes with the opponent.

There is also a straight which is a long, straight section of the speed skating.

For training they skate for at least two hours a day and spend a day in the weight room each week. But is the summer they train by watching video analysis and do yoga,Pilates and practice their core strength. But they can also train on bikes and incline skates.

Speed skating is the fastest human powered, non-mechanical, aided sport in the world. Skaters can reach up to 60 kilometers per hour. The final result came February 28 2019 and with the winning amount was the Netherlands with 3 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze. The United States with 1 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze tied with the Germans with four medals in all.