Canada's Catriona LeMay-Doan smashed Bonnie Blair's world record of 38.69 by becoming the first woman to go under 38 seconds in the 500m, at 37.90. LeMay-Doan had broken both world records unofficially on Oct. 25, but the International Skating Union did not sanction those races. That broke the world record by 1.14 seconds. There were two near misses on world records in the women's 3,000m and men's 5,000m on Nov. 30, the latter won by Gianni Romme of Holland coming within 0.75 of a second of Johann Olav Koss's world standard. As you can see, it's been one heck of a start.
Clapskate blades stay in contact with the ice longer than the traditional boot skates.
The clapskates increase skaters' push-offs on each stroke, making them use more muscles in the leg than just the quadriceps. Now that the blade stays on the ice longer, the skaters can continue to push all the way down to their toes, instead of lifting a fixed-blade skate off the ice before the leg is fully extended. In May, U.S. Speedskating petitioned the ISU to ban claps for just the 1997-98 season, including the Nagano Games, in order for the governing body of skating to write new rules to make sure the new technology doesn't get abused. There has been much griping from the U.S. team, which claims the purity of the sport has been compromised and now the skater doesn't matter as much as the skates they wear. Also, there was a significant delay in getting the Americans on clapskates, which led to allegations that the Dutch skate manufacturing company Viking withheld clapskates from their rivals as long as possible so they could take care of their own country's skaters first.