Poland’s men had a field day at the European Championships in Tomaszów Mazowiecki on Saturday. Piotr Michalski, Marek Kania and Szymon Wojtakowski (POL) started the afternoon with gold in the Team Sprint before Vladimir Semirunniy (POL) shattered the 5000m track record to seize the title in the longest distance of the event.

Mixed feelings for Semirunniy despite track record

Semirunniy set the bar at 6 minutes and 11.13 minutes in the fifth of eight pairings, breaking the previous track best set by Sander Eitrem (NOR) by a 3.97s margin. 

Eitrem himself was not present in Tomaszów to challenge Semirunniy's time, but Davide Ghiotto and Riccardo Lorello gave it a go in the sixth, all-Italian, pairing.

The Italians never really got close to overhauling the home favourite, however. Lorello eventually took silver in 6:14.49, beating his more experienced team-mate Ghiotto by 3.51s. Dutchman Kars Jansman (NED) led the rest of the field at a distant 10.26s from first place.

Vladimir Semirunniy (POL) missed out on the Olympic 5000m but smashed the track record on his home rink to take European gold in the distance © ISU 

The gold medal left Semirunniy with mixed feelings, after having missed out on qualification for the Olympic 5000m in Milan next month.

"I have the European title, but the fact that I did not qualify for the Olympic 5000m is still a big question in my head," he admitted.

"I keep wondering what did I do wrong in the first two World Cups? Maybe I need to change something for next season. I'll discuss it with my coach.

"At this moment, the track record is more important to me than the title, because this is my home track."

Despite not having qualified for the 5000m, Semirunniy will be present in Milan to skate the 1500m and the 10,000m. 

"I'm going to prepare for those distances now. We'll see what happens. Maybe I'll still get a chance to skate the 5000m too [Semirunniy is first reserve if one of the first 20 qualified skaters pulls out]."

Lorello, however, did qualify for the Olympic 5000m, and the Italian can draw confidence from winning his career first medal at an international championships. He surprisingly beat team-mate Ghiotto in their head-to-head battle. 

"I had imagined I would be able to get to the podium and I tried to skate as best as I could,” said the 23-year-old.

“Racing with Davide was a great help for me, because racing against a team-mate is inspiring.

"Since last season, I've improved a lot. I feel really good now and I hope to keep that shape for the Milan Olympic Games. Here not all the top skaters were present, so let's see. At the Olympics it's just a one-shot race. It's like a jackpot, you can win, or you can lose."

Italians Riccardo Lorello (left) and Davide Ghiotto (right) went head-to-head to overhaul Semirunniy's time but fell short © ISU 

Lorello's 32-year-old team-mate Ghiotto said that he needed to step up his game with the Olympics in sight.

"It was a very hard race today. It was impossible to beat Semirunniy. I tried to start fast, but it was not enough in the first and second lap,” he said.

"Riccardo, my teammate, took a little gap in front of me, and I tried to stay with him, but it was a bit of a nervous race. Every time I tried take a little gap, he was very strong. 

"In the end it was impossible to break him and with two or three laps to go, I understood that it's impossible to stay with him, so I decided to stay close to make sure it was enough for the podium."

Despite his loss to Lorello, Ghiotto was relaxed. "Every time you take a medal, you are happy, because every race is important,” he added.

"I'm not completely satisfied, the time is not good enough for me. I'm not in great shape right now, because I trained hard in Collalbo, and I'll go back to Collalbo to train for the Games. 

“I'm confident I can get a lot better and the Games are going to be very special. Maybe it's going to be my last race, so I want to make it perfect."

Split seconds settle Team Sprint

Before the long-distance specialists took the ice for the 5000m, the fast and furious had competed in the Team Sprint, and all three trios on the podium finished within one tenth of a second of each other. Poland was 0.02s faster than the Netherlands, and Norway came 0.09s short of gold in third place.

By winning gold on home ice, Poland defended their 2024 title successfully, but they skated in a different line-up. Szymon Wojtakowski teamed up with Piotr Michalski and Marek Kania, replacing Damian Zurek, who won Friday's 1000m and decided to focus on the individual 500m on Sunday instead of joining the Team Sprint.

Poland's Team Sprint trio Piotr Michalski (front), Marek Kania and neo-senior Szymon Wojtakowski (obscured) defended their 2024 title by just 0.02s © ISU 

Wojtakowski, a 19-year-old neo-senior skater, was happy to get the opportunity to link up with his more experienced team-mates. 

"It's an incredible feeling. I've been training for this from basically my whole life,” he said.

“I switched from the allround-team to sprint this season, and one of my main goals was that third lap in Team Sprint. With Damian focusing on the individual events, I got the opportunity to skate here.

"I won Junior World Championships bronze in the 1500m and in Team Sprint [in 2024], now this is a bit of an upgrade."

Wojtakowski is on the reserve list for the Olympic 1500m. "I didn't qualify, but that's not the end of the world for me. I've made a huge progress in the last couple of years, especially this season, and I'm really proud of of my results. 

"For now, I wanted to show myself just on the huge stage and that everybody can see what I'm capable of. Hopefully I can skate really well on last World Cup in Inzell (GER), and after that, just regroup in my head and focus on the next Olympics in four years' time."

Dutch Sprint team Westenbroek, Vos and Scheperkamp (left) won silver with their new line-up, Norway's established trio (right) taking bronze © ISU 

For Dutch trio Stefan Westenbroek, Kayo Vos and Merijn Scheperkamp it was their first Team Sprint race in this particular line-up. 

"It's unfortunate [to lose by just 0.02s] but we only had very little time to prepare together because only this morning we got notice that the three of us were going to skate today,” Westenbroek explained.

Starting skater Westenbroek has skated in World Cups with now absent Jenning de Boo and Tim Prins (NED), but the change in personnel didn’t much of a difference to him. 

"For me, that's not super difficult. With Jenning and Tim, I always go flat out as fast as I can in the first lap. Now we agreed that I would still start fast, but a bit more in control."

The Dutch were on gold medal pace halfway through the race but eventually lost out in the last change-up between Vos and Scheperkamp.

"We haven't analyzed it yet, but we only practised that change-up twice this morning, so it's only logical that it's not super smooth, although I think overall it wasn't too bad. Missing out on gold is disappointing, however,” Westenbroek conceded.

Norway skated in their regular line-up, with Siver Brattgjerd joining Henrik Fagerli Rukke and Bjørn Magnussen.

"We used to skate with [the now retired] Håvard Lorentzen," Rukke said. "I've been moving one step back. Bjørn who used to be the first now is our last guy, and he does really well. 

"After we started doing the slingshot, we figured out it was better to have me as the guy in the second position and have Siver as the fast guy to start."

Brattgjerd was happy to earn the first international medal of his career, but felt a little disappointed too. 

"It was a solid race. We made some mistakes. We know we can do better on our best days, so it's a bit annoying that we didn't finish on top.

“But it's a strong field, so if you don't perform at your best, you can't expect to win."