Today, on the ice of the Italian Colalbo, the annual fight for the title of best skater in Europe will begin. For three days, men and women will compete in four distances, after which the judges will determine the best all-rounder of the continent.
Already on the eve, the main competition was announced between the Italian Enrico Fabris and the Dutchman Sven Kramer. The first is in a much more difficult situation: he has to defend last year's title. The second, as a younger and more persistent, intends to receive a title that he does not yet have. But catching up is always easier.
“I will focus on 500 meters, because every second lost here, I will then have to compensate a few at 5,000 meters,” Enrico Fabrice defined his tactics.
Two-time Turin champion this season is moving upward. In the second stage of the World Cup, he won 1,500 meters - the distance at which he became the champion of the last Olympic Games. At the next stage in Moscow, Fabrice did not find his peers at 10,000 meters.
Sven Kramer also has two victories. He twice rivals 5000 meters in Heerenveen and Berlin. “At the European Championships, no other result than victory will satisfy me,” Kramer admitted. A native of Heerenveen, where the skating Mecca is located - the Tialf skating rink, the first number of the world rating for 5,000 and 10,000 meters, he wants to write his name in history at the skating rink in Colalbo.
In the recent Dutch championship, Kramer broke the national all-around record. Doing it in Holland is like winning the European Championship.
Another Dutchman not to be underestimated is Karl Verheyen. Besides him, among the candidates for leadership, it is worth mentioning two more Norwegians - Eskil Ervik and Havard Bokko, last year's winners.
More intense competition is expected among women. Three applicants are ready to encroach on the championship at once. First of all, a veteran of the German national team Claudia Pechstein, who will take part in the European Championship for the 15th time. At the end of December, she lost the German championship at all four distances to her teammate Annie Friesinger. But her rival, with her performances in the World Cup a priori deserving the strongest crown in Europe, refused to travel to Italy. The Frisinger priority will be the sprint world championship, starting in a week with a little in Norway. The German experience will be opposed by the youth of the Dutch athletes - Irene Wust and Renate Grenevold. Czech Martina Sablikova also claims to be a leader.
The skating rink in Colalbo is unique in its kind: located at an altitude of 1300 meters above sea level in the open air, in good weather it can help skaters earn record seconds.
But the first achievement of the championship has already been recorded. Together with the Hungarian skater Tot Agoda, representatives of 18 powers were participants in the European priesthood.
The Russian page in the history of the European Championships is inscribed only by Dmitry Shepel and Vadim Sayutin, who will display the national team on the ice as a head coach. Unfortunately, Dmitry Shepel, who won this tournament in 2001, was injured in the offseason and did not take part in the selection - at the national championship in Kolomna. The winner of the 2006–2007 World Cup stage Ivan Skobrev successfully performed at these competitions. He became the absolute champion of Russia in the classic all-around and more than a point ahead of the 2002 national record that belonged to Dmitry Shepel: 153.116 against 151.979.
Such high readiness, multiplied by Skobrev’s unrealized ambitions in Turin, may well give an explosive mixture. Russian experts consider the skater representing Cherepovets to be the main contender for the medal. It is possible that Skobrev prepared a surprise for many at this championship. He went to Colalbo almost two weeks before the start to get used to the rink, where he once became the second at the world championship among juniors.
As for women's competitions, the bronze medalists of the last Olympics in the team race, Ekaterina Abramova and Ekaterina Lobysheva, will need to get into the top six following the results of the competition.
Tatyana MILEVSKAYA