OTTAWA, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's Kim Min-sun remained unbeaten in World Cup women's 500m this season after taking her fourth victory in back-to-back ISU Speed Skating World Cup in Calgary, Canada on Friday.
Winning the race with a personal best last week on high altitude, Kim took her fourth gold in the distance in 36.96 seconds, 0.01 faster than her winning result last week and 0.03 ahead of silver medalist Miho Takagi of Japan. Olympic champion Erin Jackson bagged a bronze in 37.35, her first World Cup medal this season.
"I'm back on the podium, but I still wouldn't call it a success. I was actually just telling my coach that I don't really judge myself on a podium finish, because that's dependent on other people and how everyone else is doing. I judge myself on how I felt I skated, and I feel like I still got a lot of work to do," the 30-year-old American told the ISU official website.
In men's 1,500m, Olympic champion Kjeld Nuis of the Netherlands finally had his first World Cup victory this season in 1:42.59. His pair, 18-year-old American Jordan Stolz, who became the youngest man to win an individual World Cup speed skating race in Stavanger, Norway in November, claimed the silver 0.6 seconds behind. Olympic silver medalist Thomas Krol of the Netherlands won a bronze in 1:43.34.
"[Stolz] was the man to look at in the early season," Nuis said. "He was the man everyone wrote about and I said it myself too, so this was a race I could really motivate myself for."
The triple Olympic gold medalist won a silver with his Dutch teammates in team sprint later on Friday, 0.03 seconds behind winners from Poland. Canada bagged a bronze and China finished fifth after victory in the second World Cup in Heerenveen, the Netherlands.
In the only women's 5,000m race in this season's World Cup, Olympic champion Irene Schouten of the Netherlands bounced back from a poor seventh place finish in the 3,000m last week to claim gold with a time of 6:48.06. Ragne Wiklund, World Cup leader in women's long distance, came second in 6:52.86, which refreshed the Norwegian national record. The bronze went to home skater Ivanie Blondin in 6:54.81.
However, the fastest result was from Division B winner Sanne In 't Hof of the Netherlands, who crossed the line in 6:47.28. Olympic 1,000m champion Takagi, skating hours after her 500m race, finished in a personal best of 7:00.08, but not enough for her to top the Adelskalender, the all-time ranking in which skaters are classified by their personal bests in the four allround distances (for women the 500m, 1,500m, 3,000m and 5,000m).
The World Cup competitions continue on Saturday with men's 500m and 10,000m as well as women's 1,500m and team sprint races. ■
