The 2018 silver medalist, Patrick Roest, qualified for the Olympics as well, but did not skate this distance. The bronze medalist, Kim Min-seok, qualified as well. Nuis was also the world record holder at the start of the Olympics. Thomas Krol is the 2021 World Single Distances champion at the 1500 m distance, with Nuis and Roest being the silver and bronze medalist, respectively. Joey Mantia was leading the 2021–22 ISU Speed Skating World Cup at the 1500 m distance with four races completed before the Olympics, followed by Ning Zhongyan and Connor Howe. Mantia also skated the season best time, 1:41.15 in Salt Lake City on 4 December 2021.[2]
The early leader was Ruslan Zakharov in pair 3, overtaken by Marcel Bosker in pair 4. Bosker was the first skater in the event with the time faster than the track record. Sergey Trofimov briefly took the lead in pair 9, before in pair 10 both Thomas Krol and Peter Kongshaug skated better than he. Krol skated faster than the Olympic record, but Nuis improved his time in pair 11. Kim, who skated in pair with Nuis, finished provisionally third. In the four pairs afterwards, Howe showed the best time and finished fifth.
A total of 30 entry quotas were available for the event, with a maximum of three athletes per NOC. The first 20 athletes qualified through their performance at the 2021–22 ISU Speed Skating World Cup, while the last ten earned quotas by having the best times among athletes not already qualified. A country could only earn the maximum three spots through the World Cup rankings.[3]
The qualification time for the event (1:48.00) 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.
