Essent ISU World Cup Speed Skating Final – Salt Lake City (USA)

The final World Cup event of the season brought the world’s best skaters to Salt Lake City where a number of world records and personal best times were set.

 

Run over two days, heats and finals were held in the 100m, 1000m, 1500m, 3000m ladies and 5000m men with the 500m exceptionally skated only once. The impressive results included world records for Shani Davis (USA) in the 1500m (1:41.80) and 1000m (1:06.42) as well as 53 personal best times, 13 of which were national records.

 

The first distance for the ladies was the 1000m. Although having missed the first six races of the season, Anni Friesinger (GER) was in great form. Knowing that it was to be tough, Friesinger put together an excellent race finishing in 1:13.87. Not only did this give her a win for the weekend and an eighth overall in the standings but it positioned her as the favourite for the World Single Distance Championships to be held in a week’s time. Sayuri Yoshii finished second in the 1000m (1:14.05) establishing a new Japanese record. Christine Nesbitt (CAN) maintained her lead in the standings by finishing third with 1:14.41. With 646 points, Nesbitt finished well ahead of teammate Kristina Groves on 507 points with Laurine van Riessen (NED) in third and keeping Shannon Rempel (CAN) in fourth from making it an all-Canadian podium.

 

In the 3000m, it appeared that many ladies had problems over the last few laps due to a lack of oxygen at altitude. Martina Sáblíková (CZE), already sure of the World Cup win, didn’t take it easy and won in 3:58.62 and a total of 610 points. Several skaters then followed close behind: Kristina Groves (CAN) on 270 points; Renate Groenewold (NED) finished with 260 following her win in the 3000m in Heerenveen though missing the event in Moscow; Daniela Anschütz-Thoms (GER) who missed the last race due to a serious flu, finished with 255; Stephanie Beckert (GER) followed on 250; and Claudia Pechstein (GER) finished on 255 in spite of not competing at this event.

 

Beckert skated an impressive personal best (PB) of exactly four minutes bringing her the fourth place over the distance and in the rankings. Renate Groenewold had problems keeping up the pace and after a bold 30.7 lap towards 1800m, paid the price and lost to her pairmate, Anschütz, who finished in 3:59.88 and second place. Kristina Groves reached the podium also with an exact 4:00.00. The final results saw Anschütz-Thoms receive the same points as Groves with 375 although her three second places gave her the higher ranking.

 

On the second day, the ladies started with the 500m. Here, as in the 3000m, the winner of the World Cup was known beforehand, in this case, Jenny Wolf (GER) whose personal challenge was to finish below 37 seconds. Beixing Wang (CHN) was the first of the best skaters to race and while hoping meet the same challenge, opened with 10.38 but finished in a close to personal best time of 37.25. One of the PBs achieved was in the next pairing with 37-year-old Tomomi Okazaki of Japan finishing in 37.66 while Jing Yu (CHN) skated her first ever sub-38 with 37.63. Fourth-ranked Margot Boer (NED) skated with Sang-Hwa Lee with both skaters improving their personal performances. Surprisingly, Boer beat Lee in 37.66, a thousandth of a second faster than Okazaki, while Lee skated a Korean record of 37.70. The final pair featured Jenny Wolf and Annette Gerritsen of The Netherlands. Wolf didn’t have a perfect start and opened with 10.28 and, while losing her balance in the turn, recovered well enough. Gerritsen also lost her balance but didn’t manage to stay on her feet and did not finish. Wolf finished in 37.39 but was disappointed seeing that she holds the track record of 37.04.

 

In this the first and the last weekend of this World Cup season, Beixing Wang was the winner with Wolf second and Jing Yu third. In terms of the overall standings, Wolf tops the list with 1205 points with Margot Boer (642 points) and Sang-Hwa Lee (635 points) overtaking Annette Gerritsen who did not earn any points.

 

Then came the 1500m. Christine Nesbitt, the winner of the 1000m World Cup and who had a chance to win the double, had to withdraw due to a heavy crash in training earlier in the week. Nesbitt sustained a head wound in the incident and suffered so much that after the race on the Saturday, was unable to collect her prize.

 

Katarzyna Wójcicka skated a Polish record of 1:55.76, in her pair with Maki Tabata (JAP) who finished ahead in 1:54.79. In other races, Brittany Schussler (CAN) did well by lowering her personal best to 1:54.91. In the final pairing, Daniela Anschütz didn’t have the power to reach the podium with Kristina Groves winning in 1:54.08. Groves, the winner of last year’s World Cup, managed to repeat that this year finishing with 526 points. Anschütz-Thoms overtook Nesbitt with 355 against Nesbitt’s 335 with Schussler trailing too far behind to move Nesbitt off the final podium.

 

The last races of the day saw the 100m races with Jenny Wolf again winning with 10.25 followed by Jing Yu with 10.44 and Shihomi Shinya with 10.45. This gave Wolf the World Cup with 450 points while in second place with 236 points after finishing fourth in the day’s racing, was Thijsje Oenema (NED) followed by Aihua Xing, who in spite of not competing at this event, finished with 230 points. Sayuri Osuga just missed the podium with 220 points.