Speed skating: WM: Pechstein and Co.

Claudia Pechstein and Co. were only extras at the rain spectacle in Amsterdam: Most of the German speed skaters only followed suit at the Allround World Championships in the open-air arena. On Sunday, Moritz Geisreiter (Inzell) also missed out on the finals, after five-time Olympic champion Pechstein (Berlin) and Gabriele Hirschbichler (Inzell) had not made it to the finals of the top eight on Saturday.

Previously, Claudia Pechstein had only finished 13th in the pouring rain after three courses, while Hirschbichler finished 18th in the victory of the Japanese team pursuit Olympic champion Miho Takagi. It was a pity that she could not walk along her parade track with it, but I enjoyed the atmosphere anyway. But I’m not so sad that I don’t have to run the 5000 under these conditions,”said the 46-year-old on ZDF.

Takagi, runners-up over 1500 and third over 1000 m, won with a total of 166.905 points ahead of the Dutch Ireen Wüst (167.758) and was the first Asian woman to win gold with the all-rounders. The five-time Olympic gold medallist and local heroine Wüst would have had to make up 11.61 seconds on Takagi over the 5000m. In the end, she was only 0.86 seconds short of her sixth title.

Long-distance specialist Moritz Geisreiter occupied the 22nd place in 1:56.83 minutes on Sunday in the again well visited Olympic Stadium of 1928 over 1500 m in 1:56.83. After three courses with 119.851 points he also took 22nd place in the overall standings. Rank among 24 starters. On Saturday, the 30-year-old had not surpassed the 21 over 500 m (37.59 seconds) and 16 over 5000 m (6:53.38) places.

The Norwegian Sverre Lunde Pedersen was ahead of the Dutchman Patrick Roest with a lead of 7.78 seconds ahead of the final 10,000m. The nine-time all-round world champion Sven Kramer followed 16.14 seconds behind the team pursuit Olympic champion in third place and had to fear for his tenth title in twelve years.

During the three days of the competition, around 60,000 visitors flocked to Amsterdam and created an orange party atmosphere. The metropolis of the Netherlands was for the first time in 125 years the venue of speed skating world championships. In 1893, the Dutchman Jaap Eden had chosen himself as the first official world champion in the all-around championships.