The defending champion and the Olympic record holder was Ted-Jan Bloemen. The silver medalist, Jorrit Bergsma, qualified for the Olympics as well. The bronze medalist, Nicola Tumolero, did not start. Nils van der Poel was the 2021 World Single Distances champion at the 10,000 m distance, with Bergsma and Aleksandr Rumyantsev being the silver and bronze medalist, respectively. Van der Poel was also the world record holder at the start of the Olympics. He was leading the 2021–22 ISU Speed Skating World Cup at long distances with four races completed before the Olympics, followed by Bloemen and Davide Ghiotto. Van der Poel's skated season best, 12:38.92 in Stavanger on 20 November 2021.[2] No skater has ever won the 10,000 m distance twice.
Graeme Fish won the first pair, to be overtaken by Patrick Roest in pair 2. In pair 4, Bergsma skated the provisionally second time, with Roest still in the lead and two pairs to go. However, in pair 5 van der Poel set the world record, and Giotto, who until the last kilometer was faster than Roest, finally lost to Roest and became provisionally third. The last pair did not change the medal allocation.
A total of 12 entry quotas were available for the event, with a maximum of two athletes per NOC. The first eight athletes qualified through their performance at the 2021–22 ISU Speed Skating World Cup, while the last four earned quotas by having the best times among athletes not already qualified. A country could only earn the maximum two spots through the World Cup rankings.[3]
The qualification time for the event (13:30.00 or 6:25.00 (5000 m)) was released on July 1, 2021, and was unchanged from 2018.[4] Skaters had the time period of July 1, 2021 – January 16, 2022 to achieve qualification times at valid International Skating Union (ISU) events.[4]
Records
Prior to this competition, the existing world, Olympic and track records were as follows.
