The defending champion and the Olympic record holder was Håvard Holmefjord Lorentzen.

The silver medalist and the world record holder was Pavel Kulizhnikov, who did not qualify for the event.

Dubreuil was leading the 2021–22 ISU Speed Skating World Cup at the 500 m distance with eight events completed before the Olympics, followed by Morishige and Tatsuya Shinhama.

In the last pair, Dubreuil was 0.02 seconds slower than Morishigem thus leaving the medal allocation unchanged.

A country could only earn the maximum three spots through the World Cup rankings.