[1] The 2010 Olympic champion, Mark Tuitert of the Netherlands, sought to defend his title; he bettered the track record, but eventually finished fifth.

Poland's Zbigniew Bródka won the gold medal, the Netherlands' Koen Verweij took silver, and Canada's Denny Morrison took the bronze.

At the 1998 Winter Olympics, Silke Kraushaar beat her teammate Barbara Niedernhuber by 0.002 seconds in the Women's luge event,[2] while at the 1972 Summer Olympics Karl Gunnar Larsson beat Tim McKee by 0.002 seconds in the 400 meters individual swimming medley.

The latter narrow win in effect brought about a change so that no swimming competition henceforward would have to be decided by a margin less than a hundredth of a second.

At the 2013 World Single Distance Speed Skating Championships the track record was set by Denis Yuskov at 1:46,32.