ISU World Allround Speed Skating Championships –Berlin
(GER)
The Hohenschönhausen, Berlin, was the host of the ISU
World Allround Speed Skating Championships 2008 which took
place in front of a sold out rink this week-end. Dutch skaters
Sven Kramer and Paulien van Deutekom are the 2008 Champions.
Ladies
Paulien van Deutekom (NED) was crowned world champion for
the first time, with 162.191 points. Ireen Wüst was the
reigning champion. Last year’s runners-up, Anni Friesinger
and Cindy Klassen, were both not competing for various reasons.
The main competition would seem to come from Canada though,
where Kristina Groves is becoming ever stronger in all distances
and Christine Nesbitt especially in the shorter distances,
and from Wüst’s team mate Paulien van Deutekom,
who has come very close to Wüst this year. Also the German
ladies, Claudia Pechstein and Daniela Anschütz-Thoms
were under high expectations at these home championships,
and then Martina Sáblíková from the Czech
Republic could come dangerously from behind in the longer
distances.
On the 500m, there were two personal best times, but there
would not be many this weekend. Christine Nesbitt won in 39.03,
Wüst was second in 39.28 and third was Fei Wang from
China in 39.57. In fourth was Groves with 39.64 and Paulien
van Deutekom had 39.65. But the German ladies lost a lot of
ground here already. Sablikova’s 40.92 was as could
be expected.
The 3000m for ladies would give a first real means to compare
the competition. After a series of times between 4.12,98 and
4.22,54 by the first 12 skaters, in pair 7 the stadium watched
expectantly as Paulien van Deutekom went out with 19.00 and
had it follow by a 30.1, 31.3, 31,9 before having three 32
laps and finally a 33.3. Her time, 4:03.33 was not a track
record, but was an impressive time. In the next pair, Christine
Nesbitt did well with 4:07.34, which time was bettered in
the next by Kristina Groves who had a series of 31 and 32
laps, so a more even race than Van Deutekom, but not as fast.
4:06.36 was her time. Then Martina Sáblíková
met Claudia Pechstein. Sáblíková started
20.02 and then laps between 1.0 and 3.2. Her attempt to gain
speed in the end did only slow her down but she finished in
the second time with 4:05.69. Pechstein struggled all along.
“I couldn’t put my power into speed”, she
said later. “My blades are not communicating with the
ice as it is now.” Her time was 4:12.09, and it brought
her to the 9th place, robbing her from any chance to take
a title here. Anschütz had similar problems and finished
8th. Ireen Wüst was the only one to look at, and she
tried to attack the time of her team mate. Starting 19.35,
she also had a 30.1, 31.1, 32.1. She then tried to lower the
laps and managed a 31.8, but that blew her up, and what followed
were 32.8, 33.9 and 35.1, and the fourth time, 4:06.62. At
the end of the first day, Paulien van Deutekom was the surprise
leader with 80.205 points, second was Christine Nesbitt with
80.253 and third the defending champion with 80.383 points.
Then followed Groves and Wang.
The next day started with the ladies’ 1500m. The favorites
skated in the last pairs, starting with Wüst and Groves.
Wüst opened 25.84, at that point the fastest, and continued
with 29.1, 20.3 and 22.3, beating Groves with 1:57.59 over
1:58.67. This meant that Wüst had 119.579 points and
stayed ahead of Groves after 3 distances. Groves had 120.256
points. In the last pair, Nesbitt started faster than Wüst
with 25.77, Van Deutekom 26.09. Nesbitt was flying in the
start, with a 28.8 lap. Paulien had 29.1, but then 30.2, where
Nesbitt dropped to 30.6. In the last outer, Van Deutekom took
this race. 1:57.83, the second time on this distance, behind
winner Wüst. Nesbitt came third with 1:58.57. This meant
that in the ranking, Van Deutekom lead with 119.481 point,
and that Nesbitt had lost a spot and dropped to third behind
Wüst, with 119.773 points. The difference between the
two Dutch ladies was less than a second on the 5000m. Nesbitt
was less than three seconds behind Van Deutekom and Groves
almost eight.
That made for an exciting last distance. In pair three, Martina
Sáblíková gave all she had in an attempt
to make the podium, and she came close with an excellent 6:59.26,
which was a new track record. In the race between Ireen Wüst
and Christine Nesbitt, Wüst could not beat that time,
but she had no trouble staying ahead in the ranking. She opened
fast again, and her laps dropped gradually, but never really
dramatic. She gained 162.533 points. Her 7:09.54 was good,
but not unbeatable by Van Deutekom in the next pair. Christine
Nesbitt had one of her best 5000m races ever, and finished
in 7:15.93, but that made it possible for Groves to beat her
to the podium when gaining 4.8 second on her team-mate. In
the final pair we saw the battle for Van Deutekom to stay
ahead of Wüst’s time, and the battle for Groves
to make the podium. Both succeeded. Van Deutekom opened fast,
built the race the same way as Wüst had done, gaining
a bit at the start, and in the final lap, finishing in 7:07.10,
which was enough to make the distance podium, as well as to
be crowned world champion for the first time, with 162.191
points. Groves stayed behind her until the last lap, and then
passed and took silver on the distance with 7:06.22, and with
162.878 points take the bronze medal. Fourth was Nesbitt,
fifth Sáblíková, then Anschütz,
then Pechstein.
Men
In the men’s field Sven Kramer defended his title,
and his strength on all distances made it at the outset hard
for anybody to threaten his stronghold. Italian Enrico Fabris
the Champion of 2005 and 2006 was up there, American Shani
Davis, looked impressive as well, and Norwegian Håvard
Bøkko also came close. Chad Hedrick is on his way back,
guided by new US coach, Bart Veldkamp. These were in the beginning
the main contenders for the title, with Canadian Denny Morrison
and his strong shorter distances getting right behind them,
or Dutch Wouter Olde Heuvel with his strong longer distances.
On the 500m, the order was like last year: Denny Morrison,
Shani Davis and Sven Kramer. Morrison won with 35.81, exactly
the time he skated last year, Davis was close behind him with
35.85, only 0.01 away from his time of last year and Kramer
finished with 36.22 only 0.02 behind his personal best, to
make a stronger start in these championships (it was 36.44
last time). In 2007, Erben Wennemars won the 500m; he is not
competing now. And then Enrico Fabris finished ahead of Kramer,
but he was only tenth today, so no battle between Kramer and
Fabris in 2008, unless Fabris would come back strong on the
long 5000m, where he skated a world record earlier this season.
On the 5000m, Shani Davis was the first to start among the
top-favorites. At that point, Denny Morrison was leading overall
with 75.163 points and had done 6:33 in this distance. Shani
Davis went out on a very flat schedule, starting with a 29.6
lap and then low 30s. His time was 6:23.92 and he took over
the lead with 74.242 points, but he was not happy, as he had
planned to have his laps each about 0.4 second faster. Especially
when he saw that in the next pair Chad Hedrick and Håvard
Bøkko were capable to keep their laps that fast. Bøkko
had one 30.1 lap, the others were all faster, with several
29.5 laps. Hedrick and Bøkko showed a great battle,
and Hedrick usually wins these battles, never giving up and
with an acceleration at the end. Not this time. He tried,
but Bøkko could accelerate with him, and won the pair
in 6:17.64, Hedrick 6:18.90. In points they stayed behind
Davis with 74.304 (Bøkko) and 74.440, but Davis had
already lost much of the advantage he had built over them
in the 500m.
The next pair featured the two fastest 5000m-skaters of this
season, Fabris and Kramer. But Fabris had problems adapting
his stride to the ice that broke out in an unusual way from
under the skates, and not all techniques worked well on it.
Fabris had 3 30 laps and then went into the 31s, finishing
in a poor 6:33.61, while Fabris finished three quarter lap
ahead of him, starting with a 28.8 laps and then 29s, to confirm
his status of champion. In the final two laps he didn’t
mind some very low 30s, as he won the distance with seeming
ease in 6:13.35. Of course, Kramer took over the lead in the
championships at this moment with 73.555 points.
The final pair was between Carl Verheijen and Wouter Olde
Heuvel, but neither Dutchman made the podium. Olde Heuvel
was the strongest, with 6:25.06 finishing in fifth place in
the distance. At the end of the first day nobody doubted that
Kramer would win the title again, and hten it was close between
Davis, Bøkko and Hedrick.
In the 1500m, Yevgenij Lalenkov had posted the fastest time,
1:46.39, when Denny Morrison started. He had a 26.1 first
lap and a very strong 27.2 second lap, and finished in 1:45.98.
Bøkko and Hedrick lost a bit of ground here, with
a fifth and seventh time, the last pair gave the cream: Sven
Kramer versus Shani Davis. Davis opened 23.70, here already
faster than the others, then showed a 26.0 lap, a 27.5 lap,
where Kramer came was half a second behind. The final time
for Davis was 1:45.93, just ahead of Morrison, to take the
distance victory. Kramer missed the podium on this distance,
however, finishing in 1:46.46. But to him, it mattered that
he still had a lead of more than 10 seconds on the final distance
over Davis, and even more than 20 seconds on Hedrick, and
24.8 seconds over Bøkko. He could almost be certain
of the title.
In the 10,000m, Carl Verheijen showed an example race, having
increasingly faster laptimes for each lap in the second half
of the race. He finished fourth with 13:23.86. In the ranking,
Fabris had secured a top-7 place.
Then the top-6 skaters appeared on the ice. Wouter Olde Heuvel
showed a very strong race with a few low 32 laps and mainly
31 laps, taking the track record in a time of 13:20.97. He
overtook his pairmate Denny Morrison and moved up to fifth
place in the final ranking. Then the two Americans were paired
together. It made for an interesting race for the podium and
prestige. Davis started faster, Hedrick came back a few times,
but it was not more than ‘hanging in there’, Davis
never lost the control over the race and finished in 13:27.13,
leaving Hedrick with 13:32.69 behind. Whether that meant silver
or bronze for Davis would depend on Håvard Bøkko
who skated against Kramer in the final pair.
Kramer had a good opponent in Bøkko, who had won both
10k races in the World Cup this season. Bøkko had a
long series of 31 laps, and Kramer most of the time stayed
close behind and now again teasingly went past him. After
three quarter of the race, Kramer went into 30 laps, and Bøkko
only managed to lower his laps to one 30.9, and one 30.5.
Kramer took the victory, with 13:09.06 as well in the distance
as in the championships, and Bøkko finished in second
place (also in both cases), with a 13:10.86 having won enough
over Shani Davis to take the silver and leaving Davis the
bronze. Kramer gathered 148.494 points, Bøkko 149.823
and Davis 149.908. Afterwards Bøkko said he was incredibly
happy with that race, and the help he got from his pairmate.
Kramer said that it might have seemed easy, but that it had
taken a very dedicated lifestyle and preparation to get there.
In total their were 2 personal bests, in the ladies ’500m,
and 2 track records, on both long distances on Sunday. It
was the first ladies’ championships since 1980 that
there was no German lady on any podium.
ISU World Allround Speed Skating Championships 2008
–Berlin (GER) Medal Winners
500m Ladies
1 Christine Nesbitt CAN 39.03
2 Ireen Wüst NED 39.28
3 Fei Wang CHN 39.57
500m Men
1 Denny Morrison CAN 35.81
2 Shani Davis USA 35.85
3 Sven Kramer NED 36.22
3000m Ladies
1 Paulien van Deutekom NED 4:03.33
2 Martina Sáblíková CZE 4:05.69
3 Kristina Groves CAN 4:06.36
5000m Men
1 Sven Kramer NED 6:13.35
2 Håvard Bøkko NOR 6:17.64
3 Chad Hedrick USA 6:18.90
1500m Ladies
1 Ireen Wüst NED 1:57.59
2 Paulien van Deutekom NED 1:57.83
3 Christine Nesbitt CAN 1:58.57
1500m Men
1 Shani Davis USA 1:45.93
2 Denny Morrison CAN 1:45.98
3 Yevgenij Lalenkov RUS 1:46.39
5000m Ladies
1 Martina Sábliková CZE 6:59.26 TR
2 Kristina Groves CAN 7:06.22
3 Paulien van Deutekom NED 7:07.10
10,000m Men
1 Sven Kramer NED 13:09.06 TR
2 Håvard Bøkko NOR 13:10.87
3 Wouter Olde Heuvel NED 13:20.97
TOTAL Ladies
1 Paulien van Deutekom NED 162.191
39.65(5)-4:03.33(1)-1:57.83(2)-7:07.10(3)
2 Ireen Wüst NED 162.533
39.28(2)-4:06.62(4)-1:57.59(1)-7:09.54(4)
3 Kristina Groves CAN 162.878
39.64(4)-4:06.36(3)-1:58.67(4)-7:06.22(2)
TOTAL Men
1 Sven Kramer NED 148.494
36.22(3)-6:13.35(1)-1:46.46(4)-13:09.06(1)
2 Håvard Bøkko NOR 149.823
36.54(5)-6:17.64(2)-1:47.93(7)-13:10.87(2)
3 Shani Davis USA 149.908
35.85(2)-6:23.92(4)-1:45.93(1)-13:27.13(5)
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