Speed skating at the 2014 Winter Olympics – Men's 1500 metres

{{Infobox Olympic event

|event = Men's 1500 metres

|games = 2014 Winter

|image = Men's 1500m, 2014 Winter Olympics, Podium.JPG

|image_size = 250px

|caption = Podium

|venue = Adler Arena Skating Center

|date = 15 February 2014

|competitors = 40

|nations = 18

|win_value = 1:45.00

|gold = Zbigniew Bródka

|goldNOC = POL

|silver = Koen Verweij

|silverNOC = NED

|bronze = Denny Morrison

|bronzeNOC = CAN

|prev = 2010

|next = 2018

}}

{{Speed skating at the 2014 Winter Olympics}}

The men's 1500 metres speed skating competition of the 2014 Winter Olympics was held at Adler Arena Skating Center on 15 February 2014.{{cite web |url=http://www.sochi2014.com/en/speed-skating-men-s-1500-m |title=Speed Skating Schedule and Results – Men's 1500 m |publisher=SOOC |accessdate=15 February 2014 |archive-date=15 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140215212245/http://www.sochi2014.com/en/speed-skating-men-s-1500-m |url-status=dead }}

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. After Verweij's race in the last pair of the event, it took about half a minute before it was announced that Bródka had beaten Verweij's time by 3 thousandths of a second, which is 4.1 cm, given the finishing speed of Verweij being 49.4 km/h. Measurements in thousandths were only introduced in speed skating after the 2010 Olympics, so this was the closest win in Olympic speed skating history.Frank Thomas, [https://web.archive.org/web/20140222171358/http://en.europeonline-magazine.eu/news-feature-dead-heats-or-not---olympic-timing-differs-by-sportby-frank-thomas-dpa_319441.html Dead heats or not - Olympic timing differs by sport], Europe Online Magazine, 16 Feb 2014At both the 1956 and 1960 Winter Olympics two skaters shared the gold medal at this same distance when they clocked a time within one tenth of a second of each other. Two comparably narrow victories had previously been recorded at the Olympics overall. At the 1998 Winter Olympics, Silke Kraushaar beat her teammate Barbara Niedernhuber by 0.002 seconds in the Women's luge event, 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.[http://www.sok.se/inenglish/munich1972.4.18ea16851076df63622800011044.html "Munich 1972."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131006074055/http://www.sok.se/inenglish/munich1972.4.18ea16851076df63622800011044.html# |date=2013-10-06 }} Swedish Olympic Committee, 2008. Retrieved 2012-05-01.

The gold medal awarded in this event featured a Chelyabinsk meteor fragment to commemorate the first anniversary of this meteor strike.{{cite news | title=Select gold medals at Sochi Olympics will include meteorite fragments to commemorate Russian meteor strike | url=http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/sochi-olympics-award-meteorite-medals-select-winners-article-1.1409241 | publisher=NYDailyNews.com | first=Bernie | last=Augustine | work=New York Daily News | date=25 July 2013 }}