Patrick Seltsam:

> I am so tired of this argument that we need to create an illusion that the
sport is this great global phenomenon. Why must speed skating continually
screw over legitimate world class athletes in favour of inferior skaters, in the
interest of perpetuating the hoax that this is a wildly popular sport in
countries that it isn't?

Speed skating surely needs to focus on popularity in the few countries where
it's already popular. But that's not the same thing as keeping other countries
out of international competitions.

When I'm looking at small sports in my own country, as well as small sport in
other countries that I know of, there's one thing that's obvious:

Building a sport is very much a matter of funding. There's currently only one
realistic basis of fundning sports (being it private sponsoring or government
support):

To make the athletes visible through high level international participation.

Participating in Olympic Games or World Championships is simply the only way to
get money.

Media attention is a part of this. Not many countries do actually have media
coverage of speed skating. Winter sports giant Sweden have hardly had it since
the heydays of Tomas Gustafson. Even in Norway, which is the second most speed
skating focused country in the world, there's hardly no attention on the events
with no Norwegian participants.

Speed skating was a major winter sport in Northern Europe, but it's turning into
a niche thing even here. There's many reasons for that -- but in my opinion,
limiting the participation -- and thus making the sport smaller -- is a part of
it.

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T.B.Hansen