Wesly Dijs immediately set the tone in the opening stage by setting 1:42.38. Only three men hid under that time and Olympic champion Kjeld Nuis did not succeed. He was eleventh in 1:43.04. ,,I did not get up before this time. I am very upset and I am not comfortable here. It just didn’t come naturally. This is not ice to work hard and I had to, with every stroke,” he sighed. “I thought I was having a good time. But this time I am also driving in Thialf.” He will compete in the 1000m on Sunday.
Krol did manage to dive under Dijs’s time: 1:41.89. But his fastest time for the time being did not last, because Joey Mantia and Ning Zhongyan proved faster. The Dutchman made progress after the sixteenth time in Poland and was fifth in Stavanger. Krol was happy about that, he said. “This time is fine. I am not dissatisfied with this, especially under these circumstances.”
Once again he had suffered severe pain on one of the fastest tracks in the world. ,,I joked beforehand that they could get the oxygen bottle ready or bring a putty knife to scrape me off the ice. It squirts out of your ears here. Not fun at all actually. I still don’t see clearly.”
That is why Krol also hoped that he does not have to go to Calgary, where there is another fast track, because he has obtained enough points for the classification. ,,I prefer to focus on the Olympic qualifying tournament. Those 1500 meters in Heerenveen hurt a lot less.”
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