Vienna cheated
A hundred years ago yesterday, August Underborg skated an excellent 3000m in 5.59,2 at Altona, climbing up to 4th place in the 3000m all-time list behind Sedov, 5.30,0 (Moscow 1905), Greve 5.46,4 (Groningen 1902) and Adolf Norseng, 5.53,0 (Hamar 1888). But he was robbed of it again a hundred years ago today, when Sijbrand Koning made 5.57,4 at Heerenveen as part of one of those Dutch 2x500, 2x1500, 1x3000 meter combinations (of which we ought to note records).
The same day in Vienna, Wiener EislaufVerein arranged international races on their artificially frozen rink, where all the participants from Budapest were invited. But the European Champion didn’t like the rink, which was small, and without lane markings. So the organisers had to do without the champion to attract spectators and generate income, for which they no doubt were a little sore. And it was left to Bohrer to dominate the meet, which he did soundly with times of 47,4, 2.36,4 and 9.32,0. The skaters started pairwise in the same lane, so that often the pairs weren’t decided until the last meters. Oscar says he wanted to save his strength for the races in Davos in the weekend, which is perhaps understandable. It is perhaps understandable too, that he didn’t care overly for struggling with Bohrer again as a preparation for his record attempts.