They must have stopped using the " flag man " coz I never saw it in the Winter Games after Grenoble.This rink looks like old Inzell.

They stopped after 1973. This event in fact also took place in Grenoble, not Inzell. In 1973 the flag man was drunk and caused some embarrassment and mistakes, the ISU took the opportunity to get rid of him.

Thanks for the update!!! I remember one games where that famous Dutch skater missed changing lanes.I have seen a few ovals in my lifetime ( Frogner,Innsbruck,Valle Hoven ) and Lake Placid where I walked on it on a very hot day in Aug of 1996.I got to meet Knut Johannsen at a event in Olso in Feb of 1987.I also was able to skate on the ice there at Frogner.I also got to meet Eric Heiden at a bike race near my old home in Calif in June of 1980,what a thrill that was!!! I also met Dan Jansen here in North Carolina where I live now.I followed the sport when I was younger and wish I could have skated as a child but where I grew up,it didn't snow much.The great Anne Henning who won 2 medals in Sapporo in 1972 was born in my city in 1955 but moved to near Chicago as a small child.She is a grandma now.There was an article online during the Vancouver games and she was interviewed ( with no pic ).I would have loved to have met Bonnie Blair.

Forgot to mention I have seen the Liliehammer venus and Hamar up close.I read years ago that speed skating isn't popular anymore in Norway.Is that true?They also don't seem to use the Hamar rink much for competitions.As for here,the American gals seem to be doing well but they didn't the last 2 Winter Games.The men haven't really done well either,since Shani Davis semi-retired.My Norwegian friends live in a village outside of Fetsund half hour from Oslo.

Depends what you mean by popular. Skating in Norway doesn't dominate the life of everyone like it did before, but thousands of people still attend the big international events and hundreds of thousands watch them on TV, quite a lot for a small country. The Hamar rink is used a lot for competitions, but it is closed for some parts of the season. It's expensive to maintain ice there. The Americans were unlucky in the Olympic Games last time, trying to get an edge with new skinsuits, but they were no good and it backfired. Those two gals have won lots of World Championships and World Cup events before and after, but that doesn't count, does it?