Klassen burns hole in oval
Winnipeg skater smashes world record in 3,000
CALGARY— Bent over in exhaustion as she glided around the ice, Cindy Klassen summoned the energy to lift her arm to acknowledge the crowd after her world- record smashing performance. Rather than euphoric, she felt sick to her stomach.
“ I kind of blew up at the end,” Klassen said. “ That’s kind of my lack of endurance.”
Klassen scorched the lightningfast ice at yesterday’s World Cup with a speed skating performance for the ages. She destroyed the world record in the 3,000 metres. Canada roared out of the start position in this Olympic season. Denny Morrison, a 20- year- old phenom, is now the third- faster skater in history in the men’s 1,500 metres. He was also part of a stunning upset win in worldrecord time over the powerhouse Dutch in the men’s team pursuit to qualify Canada for the Turin Games in the new event.
“ I think the whole the team has a lot confidence and that’s going to carry us through the season and the Olympic Games,” Klassen said. The Winnipegger was paired with German rival Claudia Pechstein, who set the world record at the 2002 Olympics but this day dined on Klassen’s ice chips. She had her fastest start ever en route to a sizzling 3: 55.75 — slashing nearly two seconds off the previous mark and finishing more than two seconds ahead of Pechstein, who was second.
Kristina Groves of Ottawa lopped more than five seconds off her personal best to place fourth in 3: 59.58.
“Let me catch my breath,” Klassen asked about a half- hour after her race. “ Even at the end of the race, in my last lap, my coach was yelling, ‘Keep the tempo up!’ And in my mind, I was kind of screaming, ‘ I can’t keep it up!’ ” A showdown between Klassen and another German skater, Anni Friesinger, looms today in the 1,500 metres. Klassen set the world record in the event two weeks ago and Friesinger broke it again a week ago, both on this Olympic Oval ice.
Klassen said the team was pumped up by Morrison’s performance earlier in the day when he blazed to a Canadian record of 1: 44.10 in the 1,500 metres, the second- fastest time of the day. The only problem was he did it in the ‘ B’ race, which is a separate event, so he didn’t get on the podium with the big boys. But he moves to the ‘ A’ group for next week’s World Cup at Salt Lake City.
Morrison is seen as the team’s future star, having won gold and silver medals at the world junior championships last year. Not wanting to exert undue pressure, Canadian officials have been touting him as a medal hopeful for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. But the winner of yesterday’s race, American standout Shani Davis, thinks they better revise that.
“ Denny is a big, big contender,” said Davis, who trains in Calgary with Morrison and the Canadian team.
“ You can’t sleep on Denny because he’s a hungry young guy and he has the taste of blood in his mouth.”
Morrison satisfied that appetite in teaming with Arne Dankers and Steven Elm in the new team pursuit to set a world record of 3: 39.69. The previous record was 3:46.44 set by the Netherlands last year. The team pursuit event will debut at the Turin Games.