German record, Olympic ticket and almost a junior world record: speed skater Finn Sonnekalb won the first Olympic qualification Salt Lake City caused a sensation.
On the super-fast ice in the “Utah Olympic Oval” 18-year-old Finn Sonnekalb continued his rise to the world class and beat Joel Dufter’s German 1,000 meter record by 32 hundredths of a second.
In 1:06:48 minutes, the Erfurt talent sprinted to fifth place in the World Cup and was only one hundredth above the junior world record of 1,000-meter winner Jordan Stolz (USA).
Olympic ticket already purchased
With this, Sonnekalb secured a ticket for the games in Milan and Cortina D’Ampezzo in February 2026 right at the start of the Olympic season. Gabriel Gross from Inzell had previously surprisingly beaten Patrick Beckert’s German record over 5,000 meters.
In 6:06:75 minutes, Gross was thirteenth faster than Beckert before and took third place in the B group. In the stronger A group, Fridtjof Petzold and Felix Maly also impressed in tenth and eleventh place.
The winner, Timothy Loubineaud from France, completely surprisingly ran a world record over 5,000 meters and improved the old mark of double Olympic champion Nils van der Poel to 6:00:23 minutes. With the two German records and numerous personal bests, the German speed skating team started the first of only four stops for the Olympic qualification in Salt Lake City very hopeful.