Erfurt, Germany (March 21, 2015) -
Richardson fastest in 500m field, Kodaira close to World Cup win
Heather Richardson took the 500m victory one day after her 26th birthday. She set 37.80, and climbed past Judith Hesse (GER), to rank 3 with 560 points. Britanny Bowe (USA) was second with 37.93 and Yekaterina Aydova (KAZ) finished in third place with 38.15. The Kazak lady celebrated her first ever podium finish in the World Cup.
With one race to go, Lee still leads with 880 points, Kodaira follows with 820, while Richardson (560 points) passed Hesse, who is fourth with 517.
Leenstra grabs the 1500m World Cup, Bowe wins in Erfurt In the ladies 1500m, leader Wüst gave up her chances of winning the World Cup when she decided she was too tired to race again. Wüst had 340 points with Leenstra (320) and Richardson (280) close behind. Theoretically, Ida Njåtun (NOR, 228), Bowe (220) and Sábliková (CZE, 207) could still win as well.
Sábliková was the first of the favourites to start and she had a good race with laps of 29.1, 30.0 and 31.3 to set 1:56.74, which was good enough for the bronze on Saturday. That result keeps her in the race for the Grand World Cup.
In the penultimate pair Bowe beat Njåtun, with laps of 28.8, 30.2 and a good finish of 31.3. Her 1:55.88 was the mark to beat for Richardson and Leenstra. Both ladies had the fast openers, and Richardson continued with a lap of 28.3 (28.6 Leenstra). Then Leenstra skated a 30.4 lap, Richardson 30.6. Both skaters looked tired, but Richardson finished with a 31.9 lap, just missing the victory in 1:55.99. Leenstra couldn’t keep up with her and finished with a 33.0 lap to set the fourth time: 1:57.45 just 0.01 ahead of Njåtun. That small margin gave her the edge over Richardson in the final World Cup ranking. Leenstra won the World Cup with 410 points, Richardson finished second with 400, Bowe third with 370, and Wüst (340) dropped to rank four.
500m
1 Heather Richardson
2 Brittany Bowe
3 Yekaterina Aydova
1500m
1 Brittany Bowe
2 Heather Richardson
3 Martina Sábliková
The ISU World Cup Speed Skating continues tomorrow March 22 in Erfurt with the second 500m for ladies and men, the 1000m for ladies and the 1500m for men as well as the final 3000m for ladies and the Mass Start races.
For full results of the ISU World Cup Speed Skating Series 2014/15 please refer to http://www.isuresults.eu/ and http://www.isu.org/en/speed-skating/series/isu-world-cup-speed-skating
The ISU World Cup Speed Skating Series is available as a live stream on the ISU Skating Channel. Please note that geoblocking may be required in certain territories http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/isu/index.html
