On the men's side, the world record holder in the men's 500m was the Japanese skater Hiroyasu Shimizu. Shimizu was the smallest skater at the Games, 1.62m tall. The 500m was run over two races for the first time at these Games. Shimizu was fastest in both races becoming only the second ever Japanese to win a singles title at the Olympic Games. Finishing in second and third were the Canadian skaters, Jeremy Wotherspoon and Kevin Overland, who are 1.91m and 1.84 m tall, respectively. Shimizu's combined time was 1:11.35, 0.49 seconds ahead of Wotherspoon, and another 0.02 seconds ahead of Overland. The 1500m was won by Norwegian Ådne Søndrål with a world record time of 1:47.87. Søndrål was 0.26 and 0.65 seconds ahead of two Dutch skaters, Ids Postma, and Rintje Ritsma. In the 1000m, Postma won gold, with a time of 1:10.64, followed by another Dutch skater Jan Bos, who was 0.07 seconds behind, and Shimizu who won the bronze with a time of 1:11.00. In the 5000m, the Dutch skater Gianni Romme won gold, with a world record time of 6:22.20, followed by Ritsma, who was 6.04 seconds behind, and Bart Veldkamp, representing Belgium who won the bronze with a time of 6:28.31. Finally, in the 10,000m, three Dutch skaters won medals. Romme won gold with a world record time, 15 seconds ahead of the world record, of 13:15.33, Bob de Jong won silver, and Ritsma won bronze.