Yu and Takagi seal double gold at Astana World Cup

Yu backed up her 500m win on Friday with another on Sunday as she got the better of Japan's Maki Tsuji in a tense final, finishing in 37.64 seconds.

That sees her top the current World Cup list on 372 points, with Tsuji climbing to second in place of the absent Nao Kodaira, and Erina Kamiya moving up to seventh after taking bronze on Sunday.

The gold rush also continued for Takagi as she backed up her first individual World Cup gold in the 1000m on Saturday with her second victory in the 1500m.

The 22-year-old clocked a time of 1:56.36 to edge out Marrit Leenstra after the latter's slower final lap cost her in the standings as she finished 0.53 seconds back.

Leenstra's Dutch teammate Jorien ter Mors was third in 1:57.28 on her first World Cup appearance this season, despite feeling under the weather.

Takagi closes the gap to Leenstra in the 1500m World Cup rankings to 30 points after her win.

Meanwhile in the men's events, it was a third career World Cup win in the men's 500m for Ruslan Murashov.

The Russian edged out compatriot Pavel Kulizhnikov and Poland's Artur Was with a track-record equalling time of 34.52.

Kulizhnikov stays atop the World Cup rankings on 380 points despite having won just one of the five 500m races this season.

There was also a Russian win for 1500m world champion Denis Yuskov after he was the only one to skate under 1:46 when he clocked 1:45.50.

Shota Nakamura took his first individual World Cup medal with silver in 1:46.24 with Joey Mantia sealing bronze in 1:46.54.

Yuskov meanwhile closes in on World Cup leader Mantia with the gap now 40 points between the two.

In the mass starts, World Cup leader Ivanie Blondin took her second win of the season with a dominant performance to see off Japan's Nana Takagi and Korea's Bo-Reum Kim while Italy's Andrea Giovannini surprised the pack to take his second career World Cup win in the men's mass start.

Dutchman Evert Hoolwerf finished second and Korea's Seung-Hoon Lee took the bronze, the latter retaining his World Cup lead.