First Medals for Japan: Nagashima and Kato take Silver and Bronze in Men’s 500m Speed Skating

Written By: guyjin on February 16, 2010 No Comment

Nagashima_&_Kato

Japan has claimed it’s first medals of the Vancouver games, claiming the silver and bronze medals in the Men’s 500m Speed Skating. Nagashima Keiichiro (27) won the silver medal, and Kato Joji (25) took the bronze, with the two Japanese skaters just 0.16 and 0.19 seconds respectively behind gold medalist Mo Tae-Bum of Korea. Korea’s Lee Kang-Seok was just 0.03 seconds behind that in 4th place, making it an Asian sweep of the top four placings in this event.

The 500m Speed Skating is decided by the best combined time over two races. Kato was slightly faster than Nagashima in the first race, marking 34.937 seconds to Nagashima’s 35.108. But Nagashima pulled this pack in the second race, finishing in 34.876 seconds to Kato’s 35.076. Gold medalist Mo was able to achieve the 34 second mark in both races, although Nagashima ended up posting a faster time than either of Mo’s races (Nagashima’s 34.876 seconds to Mo’s 34.923 and 34.906 seconds). Following the race, both Nagashima and Kato expressed their disappointment with not taking the gold medal.

Nagashima was born in Hokkaido in 1982, and began skating at the age of 3. For several years he was in the shadow of high profile skaters like Shimizu Hiroyasu, the gold medalist in this event at the Nagano Olympics in 1998, and silver medalist in 2002 at Salt Lake. Nagashima was part of the Japanese team at the Torino Olympics in 2006, but finished 13th in the 500m, and 32nd in the 1,000m events.

Kato was born in Yamagata in 1985. The youngest of four brothers, he followed his older brothers into skating. Most of the big name skaters in Japan come from Hokkaido or Nagano, making Kato’s Yamagata background relatively unique. In 2005, Kato won the gold medal in the 500m at the World Cup in Salt Lake City, setting a new world record of 0:34:30. He followed this up with a 6th placing in the same event at the Salt Lake Olympics the following year.

By the way, what’s the story with the Japanese speed skating uniforms… They were apparently designed based on gold medals (no kidding), but personally I prefer the old Black and Red color scheme…..