TOKYO, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) — The 2023-2024 season of the International Skating Union (ISU) World Cup Speed Skating kicked off on Friday, with Dutch skater Jutta Leerdam successful the ladies’s 1,000-meter race in Obihiro, Japan.
Leerdam crossed the end line in a single minute 14.57 seconds, edging Japan’s Miho Takagi into second place by 0.11 seconds.
In the boys’s 1,000m occasion, China’s Ning Zhongyan got here second in a single minute 8.54 seconds, 0.19 seconds behind Japan’s Masaya Yamada.
Tatsuya Shinhama led a Japanese podium sweep within the males’s 500 meters. Shinhama clocked 34.52 seconds to win by 0.17 from Wataru Morishige, with Yuma Murakami rounding out the rostrum 0.30 again.
Due to a scarcity of qualifying outcomes from final season, Beijing 2022 winner Gao Tingyu didn’t take part on this occasion.
In the ladies’s mass begin, Canada’s Ivanie Blondin secured a decisive win in 8 minutes 25.11 seconds, defeating Esther Kiel of the Netherlands and Mia Kilburg-Manganello of the United States within the closing dash, whereas Dutch skater Bart Hoolwerf gained the boys’s mass begin.
The World Cup collection includes six occasions (4 throughout an Olympic season), with A Division and B Division races. Skaters can earn factors at every competitors, and the skater with probably the most factors on a given distance on the finish of the collection is the World Cup winner in that distance.