Dutch women match men with gold in speed skating pursuit and new Olympic record

The men had won by a margin of three seconds for their new record. That was impressive enough… But then the women’s trio of Marrit Leenstra, Jorien Ter Mors and Ireen Wüst did just the same in their A Final against Poland, but in even more emphatic style.   In taking gold, the Dutch raised the Olympic benchmark to 2 minutes 58.05 seconds, which was a full 7.5 seconds faster than the beaten finalists.

For Wüst in particularly the win completed a hugely successful Games, following her three silvers in the individual 1,000m, 1,500m and 5,000m and her gold in the 3000m. 

“It's an incredible feeling and I can't really believe it yet,” said the 27-year-old, who took her overall medal tally to eight. “In these Olympics alone I have five medals. It's a little bit crazy.”

“We have a lot of great skaters. There's a lot of high-level competition and that’s why we keep improving," she added.

Ter Mors meanwhile, attributed their incredible success to pure hard work: “We train very hard. We are always focused, and if you do that, then this is the reward.

“It's always very nice to win a medal with a team," she added. “Here we practised every morning. We really tried to skate and work together as a team.”

Katarzyna Bachleda-Curus, Katarzyna Wozniak and Luiza Zlotkowska completed a successful afternoon on the Adler Arena for Poland, whose men claimed a pursuit bronze.

Russia (Olga Graf, Yekaterina Lobysheva and Yuliya Skokova) won the B Final against Japan to take the bronze, in a fast time of 2 minutes 59.73 seconds.