Suzanne Schulting won the first 500m on Saturday at the World Cup in Almaty. The three-time Olympic champion was in a class of her own in the final. Selma Poutsma and Xandra Velzeboer crashed in Kazakhstan.
Schulting took the lead early on and never relinquished first place. Poutsma ran second to Friezin for a while but stumbled midway and thus fell out of the medals. Partly for this reason, Yara van Kerkhof finished third. Poland’s Natalia Maliszewska was second.
For the 25-year-old Schulting it is already her fifth World Cup victory of the season. Last week you won the 1,500m in Almaty, where two World Cup races take place in a row. In Montreal she was best in the 1,000 and 1,500 meters in October. In Salt Lake City she won gold in the kilometer.
Schulting can win even more gold medals in Almaty this weekend. The Friezin also runs the 1,000 meters in the Kazakh capital. The candidate for Sportiva of the Year will not participate in the second 500 meters, which will be held on Sunday.
In the 1,500 metres, Xandra Velzeboer did not win any medals. The Dutch fell in an incident-rich final, in which only three short-track skaters survived. Velzeboer was hit from behind by American Kristen Santos-Griswold and then she lost her balance in the corner, after which she landed hard in the boarding.
From a distance Velzeboer saw that the German Anna Seidel, the South Korean Gilli Kim and Santos-Griswold also fell. Courtney Sarault of Canada (gold), Hanne Desmet of Belgium (silver) and South Korea’s Shim Suk-hee (bronze) stood and handed out their medals. The referee looked at the images for a long time, but did not award any penalties.
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De Laat nearly bronze at 500 meters
Itzhak de Laat was one step away from the bronze medal in the 500m. The Dutchman had to give in three hundredths of a second to Kazakh number three Denis Nikisha and finished fourth.
Friso Emons also failed to win the medals in the 1,500 metres. The Dutchman finished in sixth place. For the 24-year-old Emons, it was his second place in the final of the World Cup season. He had previously finished fourth in Montreal.
In the final of the medley relay, the Netherlands also went completely wrong. Two rounds before the end, Kay Huisman was overtaken by South Korean Shim Suk-hee, after which he crashed. For example, the Netherlands lost a medal. It’s already the third time this season that someone from the Orange Quartet has fallen.
Soon after, the relief of women also ended in fiasco for Holland. Van Kerkhof crashed in the semis and in the remaining seventeen laps Van Kerkhof, Schulting, Velzeboer and Poutsma failed to close the gap. The B final remains for the women, nominated in the Sports Team of the Year category.
The men reached the A final in Almaty. De Lat, Emons, Huisman and Sjinkie Knegt finished as runners-up in the semifinals which was enough for a place in the final. The final battle will take place on Sunday.
