- Rolf Falk-Larssen
Rolf Falk-Larssen (born
21 February 1960 inTrondheim ,Norway ) is a former speed skater.__NOTOC__Representing "Trondhjems Skøiteklub" ("Trondheim's Skating Club"), Rolf Falk-Larssen made his international debut at the European Allround Championships of 1982 and he was in the lead after three distances. On the final distance (the 10,000 m), he was paired againstTomas Gustafson , the number two after three distances. With just one lap left to go in that 10,000 m, it seemed that Falk-Larssen would be crowned as the new European Champion, but Gustafson skated an extraordinary last lap, setting a new world record of 14:23.59, and beating Falk-Larssen (who skated a great 14:30.34 – a new Norwegian record) by 0.021 points (equivalent to just 0.42 seconds of difference on the 10,000 m). So Falk-Larssen won silver, and he would win a second European Allround silver medal in 1984. Three weeks later, at the 1982 World Allround Championships, Falk-Larssen won bronze.In 1983, at the age of 22, Falk-Larssen won the World Allround Championships in
Oslo . Winning three out of four distances, he managed to leave Tomas Gustafson behind before the final distance, the 10,000 m. Falk-Larssen finished the 10,000 m in thirteenth place, 37 seconds behind Gustafson, and ifsamalog scores had been used, he would have been number two. However, the rule at the time was that anyone who won three distances was World Champion (a remnant from pre-World-War-I days, when a skater had to win at least three distances to become World Champion). Segments of the crowd thought Falk-Larssen did not give his utmost during the final 10,000 m race, and he was booed during many of the laps. This was the first and only time in history that the World Champion had a worse samalog score than the number two, and it eventually resulted in the abolishment of the three-distance-wins rule in favour of ranking by samalog points exclusively (the "Lex Gustafson", from 1987 onwards). For his accomplishments in 1983, Falk-Larssen received theOscar Mathisen Award .Being a typical allrounder, Falk-Larssen was not specialised enough to win an Olympic medal; he participated in the
1984 Winter Olympics inSarajevo and the1988 Winter Olympics inCalgary , but his best result in six races during those two Olympics was only a twelfth place. Falk-Larssen twice held world records in the allround small combination (500 m – 3,000 m – 1,500 m – 5,000 m), in 1982 and 1983. Falk-Larssen competed internationally until 1994. He won numerous medals at various Norwegian Championships.Medals
An overview of medals won by Falk-Larssen at important championships he participated in, listing the years in which he won each:
Note that Falk-Larssen's personal record on the 3,000 m was not a world record because
Leo Visser skated 3:59.27 at the same tournament.Falk-Larssen has an
Adelskalender score of 160.576 points. His highest ranking on the Adelskalender was a ninth place.References
* [http://www.skateresults.com/skater/show/254 Rolf Falk-Larssen at SkateResults.com]
* [http://www.sskating.com/index.php?name=FALK-LARSSEN&fname=Rolf&nat=NOR&lm=m Personal records from Jakub Majerski's Speedskating Database]
* [http://web.telia.com/~u46130641/adel.htm Evert Stenlund's Adelskalender pages]
* [http://www.isu.org/vsite/vnavsite/page/directory/0,10853,4844-181527-198745-nav-list,00.html Historical World Records] from the "International Skating Union"
* [http://www.skoyteforbundet.no/filarkiv/statistikk/nm_medaljer.pdf National Championships results] from "Norges Skøyteforbund" (the Norwegian Skating Association)
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