At that time he was the holder of the junior World record at 1500 m, set in early December 1997 in Thialf, Heerenveen, where he clocked 1:52.25 to break the record.

In Nagano where he finished in 12th position he broke his own world junior record to a new best time of 1:51.47, which was 0.78 of a second faster.

Due to these records and some other decent results in that same weekend he also broke the junior world record for the small allround classification to 153.689 points.

He set 1:10.87 at the 1000 m in February 1999 and a total of 143.965 points for the sprint classification again in Calgary.

In Italy he finished in his all-time best Olympic result, by becoming 8th at the 500 m. He also became 17th at the 1000 m.