Claudia Pechstein cheered for the first partial success on the way to her seventh Olympic Games, but Nico Ihle had to cope with a severe setback after the dream start.
The German hopefuls for the Winter Games in Pyeongchang experienced an alternating bath of emotions at the end of the Ice Speed Skating World Cup in Heerenveen, Netherlands.
The cheering fist at the finish showed Pechstein, who over 3000 m in 4:07.63 minutes as tenth met half the Olympic norm and at the same time clearly won the association-internal generational duel with the twenty years younger Roxanne Dufter (Inzell/4:12.10) for herself.
The national exceptional position of the 45 year old, self-proclaimed “ice-skating grandmother” became more than clear on Sunday: Also the Stepahnie Beckert (Erfurt/4:12.59) and World Cup debutante Michelle Uhrig (Berlin/4:17.82), who started in the B-group, left Pechstein behind.
Their gap to the world’s best was large, however, and the Dutch rider Antoinette de Jong (4:03.53) won the stage ahead of Natalia Woronina from Russia (4:04.00) and the Canadian Ivanie Blondin (4:04.16).
On Saturday, Pechstein had reached 14th place in the mass start, which was first included in the Olympic Winter Games program in Pyeongchang in February 2018. However, Pechstein has the better chances of winning the medals anyway, with more than 5000 m, which will be on the agenda in Stavanger/Norway next weekend.
Meanwhile Sprinter Nico Ihle experienced a rude awakening. The Chemnitzer, who had finished second on Friday in the 500 m (34.78 m) race and had thus fulfilled the Olympic standard for the short distance, was one of the big losers due to the disqualification over 1000 m on Sunday.
“I hit the straight in the second corner before the last block. That’s not allowed. I knew right away that I would be disqualified. I finished the race,”said Ihle.
The 31-year-old has to start in the weaker B-group because of his mistake at the next World Cup – this is a big disadvantage in the fight for an Olympic ticket for the long sprint course.
The best German was Joel Dufter from Inzell, who finished 12th in 1:09.36 minutes and thus fulfilled half the Olympic norm.
This was also achieved by long-distance specialists Moritz Geisreiter (Inzell) and Patrick Beckert (Erfurt), who finished in ninth place in 6:18.72 minutes ahead of Beckert, who finished tenth in 6:18.95 minutes. For the direct Olympic norm, the duo should have been among the top eight.
Both of them missed it by a narrow margin: Geisreiter and Beckert separated from New Zealander Peter Michael (6:18,67) with fractions of a second. The distance to stage winner Sven Kramer was bigger. The Dutch World Champion won in 6:12.88 minutes ahead of Ted-Jan Bloemen (Canada/6:14.95) and Sverre Lunde Pedersen (6:15.81).
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