Nesbitt falls just short of third gold medal

Long-track speedskater Christine Nesbitt was denied a third gold medal at the ISU world single distance championships Sunday by a motivated Dutch squad that won the team pursuit on home ice.

Nesbitt, the Olympic gold medallist from London, Ont., had won the 1,000 metres on Saturday and the 1,500 on Friday, and joined with Cindy Klassen and Brittany Schussler of Winnipeg to record a time of three minutes 0.51 seconds in the pursuit at Heerenveen, Netherlands.

But the Dutch squad of Ireen Wust, Linda de Vries and Diane Valkenburg broke the three-minute mark for the first time this season, winning gold in 2:59.70.

Nesbitt skated t wo 500metre races earlier in the day, finishing fourth and seventh for a fifth-place finish overall, and she admitted to being “a little tired.”

Sang-hwa Lee of South Korea took gold in the 500, while her countryman TaeBum Mo earned gold in the men’s 500. Jamie Gregg of Edmonton was ninth.

The Netherlands won the men’s team pursuit in 3:41.43. Canada, with Denny Morrison of Fort St. John, Lucas Makowsky of Regina and Mathieu Giroux of Montreal, was fourth in 3:44.37. Goodman wins silver in final race: Anna Goodman of Pointe Claire earned the first Canadian alpine championship medal of her career Sunday in her last race as she finished second in the slalom.

Goodman, who skied to a 19th-place finish at the 2010 Olympics with a torn ACL, is retiring at age 26 to head to university to study business.

Following the race, Goodman, whose nickname is Anna Banana, donned a yellow banana costume for a ceremonial run that ended with her teammates and family mobbing her and spraying her with champagne.

“It was really cool,” said Goodman. “I couldn’t have asked for a better way to end it. I was mostly just laughing. My parents were more emotional than I was.” Read earns World Cup spot: Erik Read of Calgary, the son of former Crazy Canuck downhiller Ken Read, was just 21st in a Nor Am slalom Saturday at Mont Ste. Anne, but still earned enough points to win the overall Nor Am Cup title and earn a World Cup spot in every discipline next season. Thaw cancels events: Unseasonably warm temperatures and rain forced cancellation of Saturday’s aerials and Sunday’s dual moguls at the Canadian freestyle championships at Val St. Côme.