Sabilikova and Kramer maintain strong starts to the season
BySportsbeat
Published 18/11/2016 at 13:01 GMT
Martina Sabilikova and Sven Kramer beat both their rivals and the clock on day one of the latest World Cup speed skating series meeting in Nagano, setting new track records in the ladies' 3000m and men's 5000m respectively.
Eurosport
Image credit: Eurosport
Czech skater Sabilikova carried over her form from last weekend's meeting in China by once again taking victory in the 3000m, this time in 4:03.56.
Silver went to Antoinette de Jong of the Netherlands who had earlier been the first to break the old track record held by Canadian Kristina Groves, while Russia's Anna Yurakova made her podium debut with bronze.
Last week's runner up Marije Joling was eighth and dropped to third in the World Cup rankings with 115 points, behind de Jong on 140 and Sabilikova on 200.
Kramer meanwhile took his tally of individual World Cup victories to 39 with a rapid performance to see off Jorrit Bergsma with the Netherlands taking the top four places.
Bergsma pushed his compatriot close but a 28.9 second lap from Kramer opened up a 0.6 lead which remained until the end as he finished in 6:15.17 and Bergsma in 6:15.70 – both below Kramer's former track record.
Bronze went to Douwe de Vries in 6:17.65, 2.48 minutes behind Kramer.
The latter leads the World Cup with 200 points with Bergsma second on 160 and Erik Jan Kooiman – who was fourth on Friday – third, 15 points ahead of de Vries.
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