ISU World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships–Nagano
(JPN)
The speed skating season closed Sunday with the conclusion
of an exciting ISU World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships
event, where the best skaters of the world pulled out their
last good race of the season in pursuit of the distance World
titles. All track records were beaten, including some Olympic
records of ten years ago.
Ladies
In the 1500m, Anni Friesinger (GER) was the first of the
favorites to race. She had only skated a few selected 1500m
races, but she is experienced and knows where to peak. Last
year, she was ill and Ireen Wüst (NED) had has no trouble
taking the title then. Butthis year proved different. Wüst
was suffering from a head cold and was not up to her best.
It was Friesinger who erased Timmer’s Olympic track
record with a new best time of 1:56.06, starting with a fast
25,24 opening. Paulien van Deutekom (NED) finished in second
place, over a second behind Friesinger with 1:57.36. Bronze,
like last year, went to Kristina Groves. The Canadian World
Cup winner raced with Wüst, and finished in 1:57.63.
The 3000m ladies on Saturday saw Kristina Groves (CAN) win
her first-ever individual World title, with a well-planned
race in the final pair. Her winning time of 4:05.03 was a
new track record. Groves led a pair of two other medalists
who earned their rewards for patience in their careers: Paulien
van Deutekom was second, just as in the 1500m, and Daniela
Anschütz- Thoms (GER) was third. Van Deutekom laid down
the first serious challenge for the podium, finishing in 4:05.49
and being the first to beat the former track record of Claudia
Pechstein (GER). This withstood the assault of Anschütz-Thoms
in the next pair, although it was only the final lap which
made the difference with the German’s time of 4:05.76.
Then, last year’s champion Martina Sábliková
(CZE) surprisingly could beat neither of those times, and
so it came down to Groves in the final pair, against Renate
Groenewold (NED). The two started more conservatively than
many of the other skaters; Groves had only the sixth best
split at the 1000m mark. She managed to keep low 32 laps,
however, at a time when most of her competitors had seen high
32s or 33, and this made the difference – as Groenewold
faded, Groves powered on to the winning time.
In the 500m ladies, not much seemed to have changed in the
last year, when Jenny Wolf (GER) won and Beixing Wang, a talented
Chinese athlete training in Canada, took silver. This year
on both 500m races Wolf lowered the track record, first to
37.89 and in the second race to 37.74. Not even Wang could
join her in breaking the 38-second barrier. The Chinese had
38.18 in the first race and 38.10 in the second race, to finish
second each time, with 76,280. In the first 500m five skaters
were close together and still had a chance for the bronze,
with Japanese Sayuri Yoshii, 38.68, in the lead. But she did
not manage to keep her place. Sang-Hwa Lee (KOR) and Annette
Gerritsen (NED) battled together with a fast opening and a
good lap, where Lee took the third place on that second 500m,
but Annette Gerritsen didn’t complete lose her lead
that she had built on Lee in the first race. The difference
was small: Gerritsen bronze with 77.20 in total, Lee fourth
with 77.22 as sum of both races.
In the Ladies’ Team Pursuit, the Dutch came with the
strongest possible team, the same that won the silver medal
against Canada last time. Wüst had recovered a bit from
a cold that kept her away from the podium in the 1500 and
3000m. Together, they laid down a time of 3:02.19. The Canadian
team with Kristina Groves, Christine Nesbitt and Brittany
Schussler came close, but not further than that, with 3:02.87.
Germany with Pechstein, Anschütz and Opitz successfully
defended last year’s bronze, with 3:07.57.
In the 1000m, Ireen Wüst didn’t have the power
to defend her title. She was not the main favorite this year,
as Anni Friesinger had won the World Cup with a staggering
advantage of 408 points over Wüst. Kristina Groves had
proven all weekend to be in excellent shape, with medals on
each distance she skated, and she went off to set a track
record of 1:16.01, a time that Paulien van Deutekom and Christine
Nesbitt could not improve. Annette Gerritsen took 0.6 second
over Groves in the first 200m, and had the fastest first lap
following it, with a 27.7, where Groves had 28.0. But Groves’
final 29.3 lap was unequaled on this ice and Gerritsen finished
after 30.6 in 1:16.35. Finally, it was Friesinger who took
the gold. Her opening was only 0.1 behind Gerritsen, the lap
as well, but she combined it with a 29.5 final lap, and took
another big bite off the track record, posting 1:15.37. Counting
her victories of the past this is Friesinger’s 11th
World Single Distances Gold medal, making her the most medaled
World Single Distances athlete in history.
The last distance was the 5000m for the ladies. In the past
Claudia Pechstein has always been on this podium at the World
Single Distance Championships, but today was the first time
that she finished in fourth place. As anticipated, Martina
Sábliková headed for the track record. She had
a very even race of many low 33 laps, and managed to break
Gunda Niemann’s track record with half a second to 6:58.22.
Clara Hughes, the Olympic champion, took silver with 7:04.79,
and Kristina Groves, last year’s bronze medalist, winner
of this year’s 3000m, with silver in the team pursuit
and the 1000m and bronze on 1500m, wouldn’t be without
a medal, and finished just behind Hughes, 7:04.94, to grab
another bronze.
Men
In the 5000m for men, Sven Kramer (NED) was the main favourite
and title defender. Enrico Fabris from Italy had beaten him
once at the start of this season, but had the disadvantage
of racing in the pair before Kramer. Absent was World Cup
winner Håvard Bøkko, who had been skating for
a few months with a broken shoulder that needed a complicated
operation. Dutch Carl Verheijen, who has been on the podium
in the past five years, had the leading time of 6:29,41 when
Enrico Fabris started. Fabris opened 18.86, had four 29 laps
and then four laps between 30.0 and 30.2, followed by twice
30.3, 30.6 and 30.5. He was the first to break the ten-year-old
Olympic track record of Gianni Romme, which was 6:22.20, and
posted the great time of 6:20.22. But in the final pair, Kramer
knew what to aim for. He skated with his team-mate Wouter
Olde Heuvel, and they both opened faster than Fabris. Kramer
managed 29 laps until 3400m, with one 30.0 lap. His finish
with twice 30.3, 30.4 and 30.6 on the final lap was comparable
to the finish of Fabris, which meant that Kramer stayed safely
ahead. 6:17.24 was the time that brought him the gold again,
and Fabris earned silver just as the year before. The podium
would indeed have been the same last year, if not for the
good race of Wouter Olde Heuvel, who with 6:24.05 kept Verheijen
just outside the podium. “The times were not fast, the
ice was pretty soft and hard to glide on, so I had to work
hard”, said Kramer.
On the same day that Kristina Groves won the 3000m, Jeremy
Wotherspoon made it a Canadian double by winning the men’s
500m. For Wotherspoon, the sub-35 times come as regular as
clockwork: he had the best times in both runs of the 500m
Friday. On the first run, he finished in 34.78, beating the
old track record of 34.91 held by Keiichiro Nagashima (JPN).
This gave Wotherspoon an impressive lead of 0.33 seconds on
Kyou-Hyuk Lee (KOR), who stood second in 35.11 ahead of his
countryman Joon Mun. Dmitry Lobkov (RUS) and Joji Kato (JPN)
also remained in contention for the medals, although Kato
was dissatisfied with his race, as he did not manage the final
inner turn well. On the second 500m it was Joon Mun’s
time to suffer misfortune, as a misstroke cost him considerably.
He nevertheless took the temporary lead over two races, but
this immediately came under attack when both Kyou-Hyuk Lee
and Joji Kato improved in the following pair. With 34.90,
the Korean posted the only sub-35 race of the day by another
skater than Wotherspoon, while Kato also skated well with
35.07. Their combined times, 70.01 for Lee and 70.32 for Kato,
put them in first and second place before the final pair of
Wotherspoon and Lobkov. In this pair, Wotherspoon made it
clear who the champion was – he shaved an additional
0.10 seconds off his track record from earlier in the day,
finishing in 34.68. Lobkov on his part could not make the
podium, which meant that Kyou-Hyuk Lee was second and Joji
Kato took bronze for the host country. Wotherspoon’s
time over two races was 69.46, a margin of victory of 0.55
seconds. It was his third World Single Distance gold on this
distance, following victories in 2003 and 2004 – in
addition, he has also won the 1000m once.
The 1000m favorite was Shani Davis (USA), the defending and
Olympic champion, and winner of the World Cup. When he started,
in the pre-last pair, the leader was surprisingly Russian
skater Yevgenij Lalenkov, who with 1:09.39 had equaled the
track record held by both Erben Wennemars and Kyou-Hyuk Lee.
His main strength had been his 26.6 final lap. A track record
held by three people at the same time is a rare situation,
and it asked for an even faster time. Jeremy Wotherspoon had
tried and opened world record pace in 16.33, followed by the
fastest full lap, 25.2. But the final lap became a bit of
a struggle and he slowed down considerably, with a 28.0 final
lap he finished in 1:09.67, behind Lalenkov. Shani Davis didn’t
open that fast, 16.92, had a 25.3 lap, but with a 26.6 final
lap, he made up for it, and reached 1:08.99, a new track record.
Denny Morrison (CAN) and Simon Kuipers (NED) in the final
pair were still dangerous, but only Morrison managed to reach
the podium at the cost of his countryman Wotherspoon, with
16.95, 25.7 and 26.7 he finished in 1:09.42, 0.03 behind the
happy Russian.
After winning the 5000m, Sven Kramer was expected to also
take the 10,000m. He won last year, and when he races this
distance, he usually wins it, often he earned a spot in the
last pair. This time, he had his main rivals, Olympic champion
Bob de Jong (NED) and Enrico Fabris (the runner-up in the
5000m), skating after him, so he had no idea what he needed
to do to win. Kramer started fast, and half of his laps were
a little below 31 seconds, the others only very little above
it. On this ice, where others had most of their laps over
32 seconds, that was an enormous achievement. The track record
stood since the year 2000 on 13:12.27 by Gianni Romme, but
Kramer decided to shave 15 seconds off that time, and finished
his race in 12:57.71. In the final pair, Enrico Fabris took
the lead over Bob de Jong, and he managed to keep all his
laps between 31.0 and 32.0, with the exception of the last
lap of 32.8. But then it didn’t matter any more: he
was certain of the silver medal and his time was 13:18.81.
Bob de Jong was far enough behind him, but his 13:25.01 was
still good for bronze, three second faster than the number-four
finisher Øystein Grødum of Norway. Sven Kramer:
"I skated far too fast, in light of tomorrow. I could
keep it flat, it was really a super race, my best ever. This
is more beautiful than when you are in the last pair and know
what to do to win.”
With ‘tomorrow’, Kramer referred to the 1500m
men, where Shani Davis was title defender and World Cup winner.
But it had always been a tight battle for the podium on this
distance, with different skaters, most of them skating in
the last three pairs. First, Sven Kramer and Denny Morrison
came out to race. It was a perfect pair, and Morrison opened
a fast 23.55 to take some advantage over Kramer, whose 23.93
wasn’t bad either. Morrison then had a 25.9 lap, taking
a little more advantage over Kramer, who had 26.2. Now, the
best laps of the long distance winner would come, but Morrison
stayed right with him. The second lap was 27.0 for Kramer
and 27.1 for Morrison, who could use the back straight to
save some energy in the draft of the tall Dutchman and had
a 28.6 final lap to finish in 1:45.22, a tremendous improvement
of the Olympic track record of Ådne Søndrål,
which had been 1:47.87. Kramer came pretty close in his final
28.0 lap, but couldn’t close the gap entirely, and clocked
1:45.32. In the next pair, Shani Davis started. He opened
23.58, about as fast as Morrison, then had a 25.7 lap, to
virtually lead. But he had no help of his pairmate, who was
far behind him. His next lap was 27.2, and his passing time
was 0.02 behind Morrison. He gave it all, but had to settle
for 1:45.32, to share the silver with Kramer, and his final
lap was 28.7. Neither Fabris nor Kuipers in the last pair
could change the podium.
In the men’s Team Pursuit, the Olympic Champions Italy
beat Germany in their pair, skating 3:46.76. The German team
managed to stay close behind with 3:47.71. But that time seemed
like nothing when the Dutch entered the ice in the next pair,
and clocked in a time of 3:41.69. They were certain of a medal,
but Canada and Russia, who joined them on the podium last
season, raced in the last pair. One of the Canadian skaters
had a slow start and the others had to slow down for him,
and lost over a second to the Russian team. Still, halfway
both teams seemed on their way to beat the time of the Italians,
when the Russians started slowing down, and Denny Morrison,
who had just given so much in the 1500m, had problems following
the pace of the other two Canadians. This gave both teams
a weak finish, bringing them not just behind Italy but also
behind the Germans, although Canada’s 3:47.77 was very
close. So the Netherlands won with five seconds on Italy,
and Germany took a surprise bronze.
ISU World Single Distance Speed Skating Championships–Nagano
(JPN) - Medal Winners
Thursday
1500m Ladies
1 Anni Friesinger GER 1:56.06 TR
2 Paulien van Deutekom NED 1:57.36
3 Kristina Groves CAN 1:57.63
5000m Men
1 Sven Kramer NED 6:17.24 TR
2 Enrico Fabris ITA 6:20.22(TR)
3 Wouter Olde Heuvel NED 6:24.05
Friday
3000m Ladies
1 Kristina Groves CAN 4:05.03 TR
2 Paulien van Deutekom NED 4:05.49(TR)
3 Daniela Anschütz-Thoms GER 4:05.76
500m Men
1 Jeremy Wotherspoon CAN 34.78(1) TR 34.68(1) TR 69.46 TR
2 Kyou-Hyuk Lee KOR 35.11(2) 34.90(2) 70.01
3 Joji Kato JPN 35.25(5) 35.07(3) 70.32
Saturday
1000m Men
1 Shani Davis USA 1:08.99
2 Yevgenij Lalenkov RUS 1:09.39
3 Denny Morrison CAN 1:09.42
500m Ladies
1 Jenny Wolf GER 37.88(1)TR 37.74(1) TR 75.62 TR
2 Beixing Wang CHN 38.18(2) 38.10(2) 76.28
3 Annette Gerritsen NED 38.72(5) 38.48(3) 77.20
10,000m Men
1 Sven Kramer NED 12:57.71 TR
2 Enrico Fabris ITA 13:18.81
2 Bob de Jong NED 13:25.01
Team Pursuit Ladies
1 Renate Groenewold, Ireen Wüst, Paulien van Deutekom
NED 3:02.19 TR
2 Kristina Groves, Christine Nesbitt, Brittany Schussler CAN
3:02.87
3 Claudia Pechstein, Daniela Anschütz-Thoms, Lucille
Opitz GER 3:07.57
Sunday
1000m Ladies
1 Anni Friesinger GER 1:15.37 TR
2 Kristina Groves CAN 1:16.01
3 Annette Gerritsen NED 1:16.35
1500m Men
1 Denny Morrison CAN 1:45.22 TR
2 Sven Kramer NED 1:45.32
2 Shani Davis USA 1:45.32
5000m Ladies
1 Martina Sábliková CZE 6:58.22 TR
2 Clara Hughes CAN 7:04.79
3 Kristina Groves CAN 7:04.94
Team Pursuit Men
1 Sven Kramer, Wouter Olde Heuvel, Erben Wennemars NED 3:41.69
TR
2 Enrico Fabris, Matteo Anesi and Luca Stefani ITA 3:46.76
2 Jörg Dallmann, Stefan Heythausen and Marco Weber GER
3:47.71
|
