Speedskater Fitzrandolph In Third Place

For the Olympic speedskaters, it was another day at the office Monday at the futuristic M-Wave arena.

Another day, another dozen broken records, another dozen controversies, another dozen sour grapes.

Something tells me we’d better get used to this. While bobsledders are always tinkering with sled designs and skiers always fretting over their choice of wax, speedskaters have no history of deep-rooted equipment angst.

A boot was a boot. A skinsuit was a skinsuit. The electronic clock never lied.

Now, however, they’re arguing over hemlines. They’re lodging protests. Hans Brinker must be spinning in his grave.

At the end of the night Monday, all Casey FitzRandolph of Verona, Wis., was sure of was that he had held the Olympic record for all of eight minutes and that he was halfway home to a medal.

In palpable contrast to the first speedskating event, the Dutch-dominated men’s 5,000 meters, Monday’s 500 meters did not stir the ongoing witch’s brew involving clap-skates and skinsuits with spoiler wings.

As a result, Japan’s Hiroyasu Shimizu was still in first place and scheduled to take to the starting line early this morning without an asterisk taped to his hood. And FitzRandolph still was in third, having to make up 5-100ths of a second on his Monday time of 35.81.

American David Cruikshank was tied for 21st.