Speed skater Moritz Klein just missed his first podium finish in the World Cup. In sixth place over 1000 meters in 1:08.40 minutes, the man from Erfurt in Heerenveen in the Netherlands was just 0.31 seconds behind third place.
“That was the highlight today. He was close to a medal,” said national coach Geert Kuiper. The winner was the Chinese Zhongyan Ning in 1:07.86 minutes.
Five days after his first World Cup victory in Stavanger, Norway, Felix Rijhnen just barely made it into the top ten in the mass start. Like his teammate Felix Maly, the man from Frankfurt had won his semifinals and then finished tenth in the final. Maly finished 13th. Both had previously won their semi-finals and thus collected important points for the overall World Cup ranking. “We can be satisfied with that,” said Kuiper.
In the women’s mass start race over 16 laps with intermediate sprints, Michelle Uhrig from Berlin took twelfth place. Claudia Pechstein, who was eleventh in Stavanger and qualified for the finals as eighth in the semifinals, had to pay tribute to an attack and finished 16th.