THE HAGUE, March 4 (Xinhua) — Jutta Leerdam delighted the house crowd in Heerenveen by profitable the ladies’s 1,000 meter velocity skating on the World Single Distance Championships on Saturday, whereas 18-year-old Jordan Stolz gained gold in the identical occasion for males.
The 24-year-old Dutch skating star, Leerdam, nearly felt obliged to win on the legendary Thialf Stadium as she had gained all eight of her 1,000m races this season. She handled this strain and gained in 1:13.03 forward of compatriot Antoinette Rijpma-de Jong (1:14.26) and Olympic champion Miho Takagi from Japan (1:14.37).
“I cannot be happier,” Leerdam mentioned afterwards to Dutch nationwide broadcaster NOS. “This season was 100 percent, perfect. There was so much pressure today. Everybody asked me to win today and I did. It was a mental victory.”
Stolz from the United States, who gained the 500m and have become the youngest world single distance champion on Friday, grabbed gold within the males’s 1,000m on Saturday. He gained in a time of 1:07.11, forward of Olympic champion Thomas Krol from the Netherlands (1:07.78), Cornelius Kersten from Britain (1:08.02) and one other Dutchman Kjeld Nuis (1:08.10).
For Kersten, it was an historic bronze medal, the primary medal for Britain in worldwide velocity skating since Johnny Cronshey’s silver on the World Allround Championships in 1951.
Belgian Bart Swings gained the boys’s mass begin, beating Dutchman Bart Hoolwerf and Andrea Giovannini from Italy. Dutch skater Marijke Groenewoud sealed the victory within the ladies’s mass begin, forward of Ivanie Blondin from Canada and her compatriot Irene Schouten, with Yang Binyu from China ending seventh.
On the fourth and last day of the World Single Distance Championships on Sunday, each female and male skaters will contest within the 1,500m, whereas the occasion closes off with the ten,000m for males and the 5000m for girls.