The Dutch short trackers have won three gold medals at the World Cup competitions in Salt Lake City. Short track speedster Xandra Velzeboer also won the second 500 meters with a great display of power, Suzanne Schulting fulfilled her favorite role in the double distance and Jens van ‘t Wout underlined his good form in the 500 meters.
Velzeboer clocked a time of 41.602 seconds in the final. She had quickly cut a gap with the competition and raced against the clock individually, as it were. South Korean Choi Min-jeong came in second with a time of 42,384. The bronze went to Rikki Doak from Canada (42,478). The 21-year-old Velzeboer, who already broke the world record in the 500 meters on Friday, now leads the world cup classification with 336 points, Choi is the number 2 with a deficit of 40 points.
Schulting once again showed her class in the 1000 meters. She took the lead early and did not relinquish her lead in the last five laps. Schulting came to a time of 1.28.241 and crossed the finish line just a little earlier than Courtney Sarault from Canada (1.28.291). The American Kristen Santos-Griswold was a long way off third: 1.32,965.
Triple Olympic champion Schulting (25) also improved the world record in the series on Friday. In the 1000 meters she recorded a time of 1.25.958 and thereby sharpened her own record.
In the men’s race, Van ‘t Wout cleverly took gold in the 500 meters: 40,505. The 21-year-old Van ‘t Wout trumped the Kazakh Denis Nikisja (40,675) and Pietro Sighel (40,793) from Italy. Van ‘t Wout already surprised on Saturday with a victory in the 1500 meters. That was only his first victory in a World Cup competition.
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