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Velzeboer smashes world record at 500 meters
Short track speedster Xandra Velzeboer has broken the world record in the 500 meters at World Cup competitions in Salt Lake City. She set a time of 41.416 in qualifying at the Utah Olympic Oval. Moments later, Suzanne Schulting did the same in the 1,000 meters.
Velzeboer was more than half a second faster than Kim Boutin’s old top time. The Canadian short track speedster set a time of 41,936 on the same track in 2019.
This weekend the 500 meters is on the program twice. Velzeboer, world champion in the shortest short track distance, is the only one who came into action in both sessions and both times she qualified smoothly for the quarter-finals.
Yara van Kerkhof, Schulting, Michelle Velzeboer and Selma Poutsma came into action once on a 500 meters. They all qualified for the quarterfinals. Poutsma was the only one who did that with a second place, the other Dutch women all won their heat.
Olympic champion Schulting showed that he is in excellent shape by setting a world record in the heats of the 1,000 meters. With a time of 1.25.958, she was 0.556 seconds below her own top time set at the Beijing Games in February. With her time, Schulting claimed a place in the quarterfinals. Rianne de Vries and Van Kerkhof also qualified.
In the 1,500 meters, Michelle Velzeboer and De Vries managed to force a place in the semi-finals. Poutsma entered the penultimate lap in second place in her heat, but she had an unfortunate crash.
Schulting breaks his own world record at 1,000 meters
Just like with the women, the men also have two 500 meters on the program. Almost all Dutch participants managed to qualify for the quarterfinals. Only Sjinkie Knegt was not fast enough: he finished third in his heat, where a place in the first two was necessary.
In the 1,500 meters, the Frisian qualified as one of the fastest time for the next round. Jens van ‘t Wout and Friso Emons will accompany him in the semifinals. Later in the evening, Emons, like Itzhak de Laat and Kay Huisman, also qualified for the quarter-finals of the 1,000 meters.
