The 2021 World Short Track Speed Skating Championships were held from 5 to 7 March 2021 in Dordrecht, Netherlands.
Criticism and controversies Many prominent countries didn’t attend or boycotted the world championship for various reasons, some related to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as Japan, China and South Korea. The Netherlands, Italy, France, Hungary and Russia (as Russian Skating Union) were the only countries with all their top skaters and roster, hence raising the question of the validity of this world championship results. Some heats in preliminary rounds were misbalanced and tended to favour athletes of countries who were put in the same or easiest heats like Netherlands and Italy.
Many elite athletes from last year World Cup standings were missing and some countries were limited to only two skaters per gender instead of usual three despite lack of entries.Top short track speed skating nations to miss world championships, https://sports.yahoo.com/top-short-track-speed-skating-181357848.html Some countries such as Canada and the United States entered mostly developmental skaters because of lack of training available for their skaters. Because those athletes were not ranked in the previous last year world cup rankings, they were put in tougher heats in the preliminary rounds.ISU, https://shorttrack.sportresult.com/?evt=11213100000087 The lack of training of North American countries has also been criticized. European countries had significant advantages as they have previous possibilities and opportunities to compete, notably in European Championships, unlike North American countries. The disparity of the control measures of COVID-19 by the different federations in this year lead to a misbalance in level of field’s performances.Britain forced to withdraw from ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships, https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1104613/isu-world-speed-skating-championships"Speed skating: Christie devastated as pandemic forces Britain out of worlds", https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/sport/speed-skating--christie-devastated-as-pandemic-forces-britain-out-of-worlds-14265644
Russia doping ban On 9 December 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned Russia from all international sport for a period of four years, after the Russian government was found to have tampered with laboratory data that it provided to WADA in January 2019 as a condition of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency being reinstated. As a result of the ban, WADA plans to allow individually cleared Russian athletes to take part in the 2021–2022 World Championships and 2022 Winter Olympics under a neutral banner, as instigated at the 2018 Winter Olympics, but they will not be permitted to compete in team sports. The title of the neutral banner has yet to be determined; WADA Compliance Review Committee head Jonathan Taylor stated that the IOC would not be able to use "Olympic Athletes from Russia" (OAR) as it did in 2018, emphasizing that neutral athletes cannot be portrayed as representing a specific country. Russia later filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the WADA decision. The Court of Arbitration for Sport, on review of Russia's appeal of its case from WADA, ruled on December 17, 2020 to reduce the penalty that WADA had placed. Instead of banning Russia from sporting events, the ruling allowed Russia to participate at the Olympics and other international events, but for a period of two years, the team cannot use the Russian name, flag, or anthem and must present themselves as "Neutral Athlete" or "Neutral Team". The ruling does allow for team uniforms to display "Russia" on the uniform as well as the use of the Russian flag colors within the uniform's design, although the name should be up to equal predominance as the "Neutral Athlete/Team" designation.
Schedule All times are local (UTC+1).Schedule
Date Time Event5 March 10:00 Qualifying 16:006 March 13:47 1500 m women 1500 m men 500 m women 500 m men7 March 14:02 1000 m women 1000 m men 3000 m women 3000 m men 3000 m relay women 5000 m relay men
Medal summary Medal table
Men Overall 60 pts 55 pts Semion Elistratov Russian Skating Union 44 pts 500 m 40.524 Semion Elistratov Russian Skating Union 40.603 40.673 1000 m 1:25.901 1:26.000 1:26.083 1500 m 2:18.143 2:18.202 Semion Elistratov Russian Skating Union 2:18.296 5000 m relayDaan BreeuwsmaItzhak de LaatSjinkie KnegtJens van 't Wout 6:46.161 Csaba BurjánJohn-Henry KruegerShaoang LiuShaolin Sándor LiuAlex Varnyú 6:55.809Yuri ConfortolaTommaso DottiPietro SighelLuca Spechenhauser 6:56.554
Women Overall 136 pts 58 pts 39 pts 500 m 42.661 42.719 42.850 1000 m 1:26.854 1:26.993 1:27.470 1500 m 2:36.884 2:37.089 2:37.109 3000 m relay Selma PoutsmaSuzanne SchultingYara van KerkhofXandra VelzeboerRianne de Vries 4:08.024Gwendoline DaudetTifany Huot-MarchandAurélie LévêqueAurélie Monvoisin 4:10.267 Arianna FontanaCynthia MascittoArianna SighelMartina ValcepinaArianna Valcepina 4:17.631
References
External links Results Results book