Cindy Klassen (CAN) and Shani Davis (USA) have crowned their season with the ISU World Allround Speed Skating Championships title. Both also set new world records. On the fast ice of Calgary championships records were smashed on all distances. On three distances, there was a new world record.

Ladies
If anybody before the tournament had doubted Cindy Klassen would win, that person was silenced by her tremendous 500m. Klassen flew over the ice in 37.51 second, only 0.3 second above the world record. Not many sprinters manage such a time, let alone an allround skater, who is equally capable of winning the longest distance. The silver on the 500m was shared by Russian Yekaterina Lobysheva and another strong Canadian, Kristina Groves. They both skated 38.75.
Klassen increased her lead by a world record of 3:53.34 in the 3000m. Claudia Pechstein (GER), who had been fourth in the 500m in a personal best of 38.99, skated a NR of 3:57.35, taking some time back on Groves, who finished third in 3:59.46.

The second day Klassen continued with the second time ever skated in the 1500m, 1:51.85, just above the world record she skated earlier this season in Salt Lake City, over two seconds faster than Ireen Wüst (NED), who skated a Dutch record of 1:54.03. Again, Kristina Groves reached the podium with 1:54.54 and Pechstein was fourth again, with 1:55.82.
On the final distance, the number two of last week’s Junior Worlds, 18-year-old Martina Sábliková (CZE), improved the Calgary track record to 6:50.45, a time really unheard of for a junior skater. It was however improved in the final pair by Cindy Klassen, who won also her fourth distance, in the second best time ever: 6:48.97, just two seconds above the world record that Claudia Pechstein set in 2002. After a 6:54.55 by Groves, Pechstein needed to use all her resources to pass Groves in points, and did exactly that, with 6:51.11.

Klassen had told journalists beforehand that she was not entirely healthy and not in top form. But this weekend didn’t show any sign of that. “I surprised myself, even more in the 500m. I thought I could skate a 38 low, but never dreamed of 37.5. The ice is just fast here. In the 3000m I wanted to put together a solid race, even throughout the race, and I did that. And then to be under 6.50 on the 5000 is really awesome. Skating on fast ice and with a home crowd gives us a little extra push.” She admitted that she felt sorry that Anni Friesinger (GER) couldn’t defend her title, but it didn’t take away anything of her outstanding performance.

Men

Defending champion Shani Davis knew he would have a tough opponent in his countryman Chad Hedrick, the champion of 2004.
In the 500m, Shani won and took a 0.41 second lead over Hedrick, who finished third. Konrad Niedzwiedzki (POL) showed his 500m win in the European Championships hadn’t been an accident and finished in 35.52 in second place.
In the 5000m men, Enrico Fabris first improved the Italian record to 6:10.23. Then the two Americans were paired together. Hedrick took the lead, but didn’t manage to make up the 1.5 second he needed to take over the overall lead. Davis stayed close behind and closed in on Hedrick in the final laps. Hedrick did 6:09.98, Davis 6:10.49, just behind Fabris. In the next pair, Sven Kramer from the Netherlands finished 0.01 second within Hedrick’s time, and won the 5000m in 6:09.97. However, the 19-year-old was not satisfied, because his 500m had not been competitive enough, and he didn’t really win any time back on Hedrick here. He announced that all there was left for him to do, was to go for the 10,000m world record.

The next day, Shani Davis managed to increase his lead. Paired again with Hedrick, Davis robbed him of the 1500m world record and brought it down to 1:42.68. Hedrick finished second with 1:42.85, and third was Canadian Denny Morrison with 1:42.97, a national record. Enrico Fabris bettered the Italian record with 1.5 second and finished fourth (1:44.02). After three distances, Davis led with 106.445 point, Hedrick followed with 106.861 point and behind them the gap to Fabris 107.686 point was considerate.

On the 10,000m, Lasse Sætre (NOR) wanted his career to finish in strength. He set a Norwegian record of 12:56.85. In the next pair, Kramer was paired with Øystein Grødum (NOR). Kramer went for the announced world record, and though having a few inferior laps around 6000m, he had a strong finish and with a 28.5 last lap reached a new world record of 12:51.60. Grødum had to let him go in the end, but improved the Norwegian record Sætre had just clocked to 12:56.38. Kramer became the youngest skater in history to hold the world records on the two longest distances.

But as these were allround championships, the main players were to skate in the final two pairs. Chad Hedrick raced Enrico Fabris. He had to skate a time that would be out of reach for Davis, who was not allowed to lose more than 8.32 second to him. With pbs of 12:55.11 for Hedrick and 13:25.51 for Davis, that didn’t look too complicated on paper. But Davis had skated nothing but personal bests, which couldn’t be said for Hedrick. The close finish on the 5000m promised an opportunity for Davis and an exciting battle.
However, the distance ended in a kind of anticlimax. Chad Hedrick started not too fast, and after a quarter of the race, he was three seconds behind the time of Kramer. But then, he lost focus and kept skating in the inner lane when coming out of the inner lane at the crossover straight. His coach shouted something to him, and when Hedrick realised that he went into that turn on the wrong side of the cone, he jumped over the lane markers to the right side. There was nothing to prevent a disqualification there. “I made a silly mistake”, Hedrick said with a bit of a smile on his face. “It’s the third time this happened to me. You live and you learn. I then asked the referee to let me know as soon as possible if I was disqualified. Better to hear that within seven laps than after ten minutes of hard skating. But congratulations to Shani.”
Although Shani Davis didn’t have to hurry in the final 10,000m, he had a good race and finished in 13:05.94, proving that he earned that title, and that it wasn’t just handed to him. He gathered a world record of 145.742 point. Enrico Fabris was second overall, and Sven Kramer’s time was good enough to make it to the overall podium.

In total there were 3 world records, 22 NRs in the distances, 81 personal bests. All national points records (except for USA ladies) tumbled as well.