For around 15 minutes, Moose Jaw’s Graeme Fish was in the gold medal position at the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games.
The 24-year-old took the ice in the first pairing of the 10,000 metres speed skating competition early Friday morning and put down a time of 12:58.80 to easily win his pairing with New Zealand’s Peter Michael, lapping the Kiwi in the process.
And for the first 13 laps of the second pairing, Fish was still in first.
Eventually, the Netherlands’ Patrick Roest finished 14.21 seconds ahead of Fish with a time of 12:44.59 -- and by the time the fourth group finished their skate, he was out of the medals.
Fish put together a consistent race from his fourth lap on, hovering between 30.7 and 30.9 second laps from lap four through lap 19, but never breaking the 30-second mark in one of his 25 trips around the 400 metre Ice Ribbon track.
When all was said and done, Fish would record a sixth-place finish in his first appearance at the Olympic Games.
"It was the best I could have done today,” Fish told the Canadian Press after his race. “Two months ago, I had COVID and yeah, it was kind of tough to kind of come back from there. (But) it was fun out there. I'm here at the Olympics, and it's a dream come true."
The former Kinsmen Moose Jaw Speed Skating Club competitor was nine seconds off his season-best time set in his lone World Cup race and 22 seconds back of his world record time set two years ago.
The result wasn’t without maximum effort for Fish, though -- moments after he finished his race, he had to find a container to empty the contents of his stomach.
"If I don't throw up after a race, it means I didn't go all out. So I'm happy I threw up," he said with a laugh. "I like pain. I love skating. And for me, the longer the better, the longer you get to skate the better. It kind of drives me."
Fish’s mentor Ted-Jan Bloeman -- the defending Olympic champion -- struggled to a 13:01.39 and finished in eighth place. Like Fish., Bloeman was also coming off a bout with illness, just not COVID related.
That left coach Bart Schouten wondering just what might have been if the duo -- who finished one-two on the podium when Fish set his world record two years ago -- had been completely healthy and fully trained up.
“They just didn't have enough after being sick," he said. "And that's very unfortunate, because we know two years ago they were one and two in this distance. It's very frustrating. But you kind of have to accept it’s just what happens. People get sick, especially we all know about in the last two years, right? It's been bad timing."
The race was essentially a coronation for Sweden’s Nils van der Poel, as he capped off an incredibly impressive last year of competition by easily breaking his own world record in a time of 12:30.74 to claim gold.
Roest would end up winning silver and Italy’s Davide Ghiotto took advantage of skating with van der Poel to put down a time of 12:45.98 and win bronze.
Fish was among the many left in awe of van der Poel’s performance.
“No one's even close to him," Fish said. "He's changing how probably everyone's going to be training now. The way he skates is unbelievable. I wish I could skate as well. I can't comprehend it, he's out of this world."
Fish might still have another skate at these Olympics, as he’s slated to skate in next week’s mass start event as an alternate.
You can watch Graeme’s full skate by visiting https://bit.ly/3Jo7WFi.
