The local heroes Anna Seidel, Bianca Walter and Christoph Schubert have fulfilled their expectations at the start of the European Shorttrack Championships in Dresden. The trio of the German Speed-skating Association (DESG) around 19-year-old hopeful Seidel reached the next round on all three courses.
Seidel, as the first runners-up of their preliminary round, and Walter and Schubert, who were the third runners to reach the semi-finals on Saturday, ran over 1500 m. The three athletes who were training in Utrecht, the Netherlands, qualified for the quarter-finals as the second runners in each case. On the 500m sprint course, Seidel, Walter and Schubert in second place each made it to the quarter-finals.
“It went well. I felt good in qualifying,”said Seidel, who, together with Walter, has already played for the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang/South Korea (9th place) and is now in charge of the Olympic Games. till 25. February) is qualified.
Schubert can still fulfil the standard of the German Olympic Sports Federation (DOSB) in Dresden. However, the 23-year-old Saxon must reach the finals. Meanwhile, Adrian Lüdtke (Rostock) and Tobias Pietsch (Dresden) missed their way into the next round on each of the three individual courses.
The 3000m women’s relay team (Seidel, Walter, Tina Grassow and Gina Jacobs/all Dresden) qualified for the semi-finals. Luck had the 5000m-men’s relay (Schubert, Pietsch, Felix Spiegl/Munich, Lüdtke) in her first heat. Behind world champions Netherlands and France, the quartet came third with a lap behind them, but still scored one of the two third-fastest times to qualify for the quarter-finals.