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); and for the men: Kang-Seok Lee (KOR), Stefan Groothuis (NED), Shani Davis (USA) and Bob de Jong (NED). An interesting total of six different nationalities!
Ladies
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.
Men
On the first day, the sprinters skated the first 500m. Kang-Seok Lee won in 35.03 and Kyou-Hyuk Lee (KOR) finished a little behind him in 35.08. The third place was for Jacques de Koning (NED), who with 35.18 had his fastest time of the season. In the second 500m, the winner was Kyou-Hyuk Lee, who – after the poor race of Japanese Joji Kato (35.45) – knew that he, just like Kang-Seok the day before, could overtake Kato and move up to second overall. Lee won with 35.00, while Yuya Oikawa was second with 35.11 and Kang-Seok Lee was third with 35.12. That made Kang-Seok the winner of the World Cup 500m with 845 points, while the runner-up was his team-mate Kyou-Hyuk Lee with 745 points, and Kato lost his leading position, and dropping to third with 671 points.
On the 1000m, Olympic Champion Shani Davis set a time of 1:09.21. However, there was one pair to go with the leader in the ranking, Stefan Groothuis (NED), and Kyou-Hyuk Lee and all three of them could still win the World Cup. Lee knew that if he won this race, he would win the cup, but Groothuis was just too good today, and managed to do the distance in 1:08.66, Lee finished in second with 1:09.00, leaving Shani the third place on the podium. It meant that Groothuis took the World Cup with 580 points. Lee was second with 522 points, and Davis with 485 was third. “It’s beautiful if you can win, even with such a big gap!”, said Groothuis.
On Saturday, the men skated the 1500m. With one pair to go, Stefan Groothuis was in the lead with 1:46.09, half a second faster than Ivan Skobrev (RUS), who had 1:46.59. In the last pair, the top skaters in the ranking raced. Trevor Marsicano had been in the lead overall, but Shani Davis only needed to beat him and finish on the podium to overtake him. It proved to be an easy job; Marsicano was too tired after his flight to Europe to skate well, and Davis was strong enough. He won the distance in 1:45.92, beating the time of Groothuis with a strong last lap, with Marsicano finishing in 11th place in the field. It gave Davis the World Cup with 440 points. Håvard Bøkko, who was fifth on this day, managed to move up from fourth to second place in the ranking with 357 points, beating both Marsicano and Kuipers, who had been in front of him. Groothuis had been 7th in points, but moved up to the final podium with 342 points.
In the 5000m, competition was tight at first. There were many skaters at between 6:31 and 6:36, and two Dutchmen below 6:30, Jonathan Kuck (USA) then took the lead with 6:25.82. In the last pair but one, both skaters managed to get below that, Ivan Skobrev (RUS) was leading from the start over Bob de Vries (NED), and took the lead with 6:22.50, De Vries finished in 6:24.44. Still, it looked like a really hard effort. In the last pair, the appearance of Bob de Jong was a totally different affair. He had won the Cup at the previous competition, but said: “I still really wanted to win”. His slowest lap was 30.1, and he finished with a row of 29s, his final time 6:18.62. His pair-mate, Håvard Bøkko (NOR), last year’s World Cup winner, lost his second place in the ranking and dropped to fourth overall, finishing 6th in 6:26.82 with final laps just above 31. De Jong is the clear winner with 610 World Cup points, Skobrev is second with 410, and Bob de Vries moves up to third with 356 points.
Results
