Marwin Talsma wins third Olympic ticket for 5000 meters | To skate

The victory again went to Nils van der Poel. The Swedish world champion, who set the world record at 6.01.56 in Salt Lake City last week, could not reach that top time in Calgary. He finished in 6.04.29, above Sven Kramer’s track record of 6.03.32, but was still much faster than the Italian Davide Ghiotto (6.09.34) and Ted-Jan Bloemen from Canada (6.09.52).

Patrick Roest and Jorrit Bergsma were not at the start in Calgary. With their previous performances, they had already secured the necessary place in the top-14 of the World Cup standings over the 5000 meters and 10 kilometers long distances. Despite the absence, Bergsma finished seventh and Roest ninth in the standings.

Dubreuil hard at 500 meters

The Canadian Laurent Dubreuil has delivered a lightning fast 500 meters. The reigning world champion thus defeated the also very fast Chinese Tingyu Gao, who came to 33.87. The Japanese Yuma Murakami was third with 33.89.

Ronald Mulder made his comeback in the World Cup because of the cancellations of Kai Verbij, Dai Dai N’tab, Hein Otterspeer and Merijn Scheperkamp. The winner of the Olympic bronze at the Sochi Games in 2014, suffered a groin injury at the National Championships at the end of October. He finished nineteenth with 35.01. Lennart Velema was twentieth and last with 35.11.

Dubreuil stayed ahead of the Japanese Wataru Morishige in his ride and smashed Jeremy Wotherspoon’s Canadian record of 34.03, which had long been the world record. In the 500 meters in Calgary, four skaters drove under 34 seconds. In addition to Dubreuil, Gao and Murakami, it was Russian Viktor Mushtakov, who clocked 33.96.

The Canadian drove the third time ever in the 500 meters on his home track. Only the Russian world record holder Pavel Kulizhnikov (33.61) was twice faster. However, the Russian cannot yet compete with the top this season. With 34.51 he finished fifth in the B-division.

“My goal was to beat Jeremy Wotherspoon’s Canadian record and run under 34 seconds. In Salt Lake City I made a few mistakes, but I knew I had another chance,” said Dubreuil at the US. “I thought: I’ll just go out on the track and have fun. It was a very beautiful day. Wotherspoon’s record was from 2007, which was a mythical time for me to beat.”

In the 500 meters standings, the Netherlands is still in the top-20 with four skaters, where three in the top-20 are needed for the maximum number of three starting places for the Beijing Games. With one race to go on Sunday, Verbij is thirteenth, N’tab fifteenth, Scheperkamp seventeenth and Otterspeer nineteenth in the standings. According to the calculations of the skating association KNSB, the number of points of Dutch skaters is sufficient to secure the three starting places.