Canada’s Bloemen sets new long track world record, wins gold
Speed Skating Canada’s Ted-Jan Bloemen has set a new world record in the men’s 10,000 metres on his way to winning ISU World Cup gold in Salt Lake City, Utah on Saturday.
At the second long track World Cup stop of the season, Bloemen obliterated Sven Kramer’s long-held global standard by completing the 10,000m event in 12 minutes and 36.30 seconds. Kramer’s old mark had stood since March 10, 2007 at 12:41.69. The Dutchman was second behind Bloemen with a time of 12:44.26 on Saturday, with another Netherlands skater, Jorrit Bergsma (12:53.99) winning bronze.
Born in the Netherlands, Bloemen became a Canadian citizen a year ago and started resetting the nation’s long track distance records straight away last October, when he bettered Olympian Arne Dankers’ mark held since 2005.
The competition in Utah started on Friday where two Canadians Olympians picked up medals.
Ivanie Blondin was third in the women’s 5000m behind Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic and Russian Natalya Voronina. Blondin’s time of six minutes and 55.88 seconds trailed Sablikova’s 6:47.42 and was slightly slower than Voronina’s 6:53.16.
William Dutton continued his impressive start to the 2015-16 season with his third 500m medal in as many races, taking bronze in the first of two contests at that distance this weekend in 34.35 seconds. Pavel Kulizhnikov of Russia broke the men’s 500m world record for the second straight week, lowering it to 33.98s while Mitchell Whitmore of the United States (34.19s) took silver.
The Utah leg of the World Cup continues through Saturday night and concludes Sunday afternoon. Last week Canadians opened the long track World Cup season with seven medals in Calgary.
