The World Cup series saw its conclusion at the venue where it began earlier this year, in Heerenveen in Holland. The trophies went to Jenny Wolf (GER), Heather Richardson (USA), Christine Nesbitt (CAN) and Martina Sábliková (CZE)
The 500m for ladies was skated on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, Annette Gerritsen had her best race this season, although she missed the start because of an injury. After two fourth places in Moscow, she opened strongly in 10.52 and finished in a fast 38.31. She was happy with this, but she thought that Jenny Wolf (GER) and Sang-Hwa Lee (KOR) would be faster. They weren’t! Wolf beat Lee with 38.37 over 38.49 and finished in second, with Lee in third. For Wolf, it was enough to be certain of the overall win. The next day, in the second 500m, Wolf took revenge on her loss the previous day, and beat Gerritsen with 38.37 against 38.55. and Lee was placed second between them with 38.48. Thus, Wolf won the Cup with 1190 points, Lee was second with 875 and Boer third with 735.
In the 1000m on Sunday, the podium was all Dutch. Ireen Wüst won in 1:15.76, second was Marrit Leenstra with 1:16.19 and third Laurine van Riessen with 1:16.37. Nesbitt, who had won all five previous races that she participated in, finished in fourth, just behind the podium. She needed to gain 60 points on Heather Richardson to win the World Cup, as Richardson won the two races that Nesbitt missed earlier in the year, and she had had good results in all her races. But Richardson, paired with Nesbitt, didn’t lose much time, and finished in 6th place with 1:16.62. As a result, she won the World Cup with a total of 605 points; Nesbitt was second with 590 and Margot Boer finished in third with 360 points, pushing Nao Kodaira (JPN) off the podium.
On Friday, the ladies had their 1500m. Christine Nesbitt had won the first four races this season and with another third place, she could hardly miss the World Cup title. But victory in this race was finally not for Nesbitt, but for Dutch world allround champion Ireen Wüst, who had a good start and a strong finish, including 29.9 and 31.5 laps, in 1:56.35. In the final pair, Nesbitt raced with Marrit Leenstra (NED), who won in Salt Lake City. Leenstra stayed close to Nesbitt and managed to overtake her in the final lap. Leenstra finished with 1:57.00 in second place and Nesbitt, who seemed tired, was third in 1:57.86. This made Nesbitt the overall winner with 575 points, Leenstra, second with 466, stayed just ahead of Wüst (460) in the final ranking. Nesbitt and Wüst were both on every 1500m podium where they competed.
In the 3000m, Olympic champion Martina Sáblíková (CZE) had to be faster than Stephanie Beckert (GER), who was still in the lead with 5 points. There was a large gap with number 3 Jilleanne Rookard. Claudia Pechstein (GER) set a time that held in the first half of the competition, 4:09.60, and secured a start at the World Distance Championships in Inzell next weekend. Jorien Voorhuis managed to set a faster time: with a good middle part of the race, she reached 4:08.96. Rookard secured enough points with 4:10.05 to keep the third place in the ranking, and then came the battle between the top skaters. But from the start it was clear that Sábliková was the strongest, and Beckert could stay reasonably close but not overtake. The distance gold was for the Czech lady with 4:06.21, and with 4:08.03 Beckert took the silver. And that was how the final rankings were: Sáblíková with 510 points, Beckert then with 475, Rookard with 351 third. There was one personal best in this race.
Check full results at ISU website :-Results
(Photo Christine Nesbitt. Courtesy ISU/ Teunis Versluis
