Hiroyasu Shimizu got off to one of his trademark rocket starts in the men's 500 meters Tuesday, but could not carry it around the final bend and came up 0.03 of a second shy of defending his Olympic speedskating crown at the Salt Lake City Winter Games.
Japan's Hiroyasu Shimizu takes the silver.Shimizu, trailing by 0.19 of a second after Monday's first race, clocked 34.65 seconds over the second leg at the Utah Olympic Oval to finish with an aggregate time of 1 minute, 9.26 seconds and the silver medal.
American Casey FitzRandolph, who posted an Olympic record 34.42 seconds Monday, held on for the gold medal with a 34.81 for a total time of 1:09.23 for the two races. Kip Carpenter, also of the United States, took the bronze with a 34.79 for 1:09.47.