Speed Skating Sprint World Championships 2012
The world of top level Speedskating comprises three disciplines: Sprint, Single Distance and All Round.
The Speed Skating Sprint World Championships 2012 have been staged on the reputedly fast ice of the Olympic Track in Calgary (Canada).
The Netherlands were once again GSN champions thanks to overall victory in the Men (Stefan Groothuis) and significant placements in the Women. A mixture of excellence and breadth of talent that saw them prevail over China, out of the first eight in the Men but with three placements in the Women, including gold (Jing Yu) and bronze medals.
Stefan Groothuis (Netherlands)Hosts Canada finished below par: they were second last year but out of the top three in 2012, saved only by 2011 Women’s champion Christine Nesbitt, who had to settle for second place behind Jing Yu.
Last year in Heerenveen (Netherlands) the Dutch won with 35,9% of the points, one of the highest tournament winning percentages among GSN sports. That this is a very specialized sport was confirmed by the fact that the top three, with South Korea (the 2010 winners) and Canada behind the Dutch, cornered 79,5% (!) of the points.
No surprise then if third overall spot went to South Korea. They would have probably won overall but Stefan Groothuis managed to slip past Speedskating legend Kyou-Hyuk Lee (four times world champion in the last five years!) and team mate Tae-Bum Mo and clinch the top berth.
It was a high caliber tournament as witnessed also by the number of new records set: Christine Nesbitt (Canada) took the 1000m world record and Jing Yu (China) the 500m in the Women, and besides these some 17 national records and 68 personal best performances were recorded.
