World Cup Finals -- Dutch treats galore

Like the classic TV promotional ad of the early 1980's, "New Jersey and you -- perfect together" -- the World Cup Finals came to their traditional endpoint, the Ijsstadion Thialf speed skating oval in Heerenveen, Netherlands this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday, March 7-9, 2003.

With a one-weekend post-season looming (the World Single Distance Championships in Berlin) this weekend, points championships in half the races were still up for grabs.

This past weekend saw points crowns decided on both the men's and women's 1,500 meters, while the first of the final two 500m races would be contested as well.

Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt of Germany advanced past Catriona Lemay Doan of Canada for third place on the all-time World Cup victories list with her 34th career win and seventh 500m in a row.

Anzhelika Kotyuga of Belarus copped her best finish in a World cup 500m with the silver, and Manli Wang continued Asian consistency at the top of the leader board with her bronze. Lemay Doan was fourth and Jenny Wolf of Germany fifth.

As has been the case all season, no American was in the top dozen or so; Chris Witty had the best U.S. finish in 14th, the only Yank to skate that day on this race.

There were times when skaters who have already clinched season championships opted to sit this weekend out. One of them was 500m men's World Cup winner, Jeremy Wotherspoon, the defending World Sprints champion from Canada, whose back aggravated him on Friday, and he finished dead last out of the 20 skaters who raced.

Erben Wennemars led a 1-4-5 Dutch showing, as Mike Ireland, Wotherspoon's teammate, salvaged partly a disappointing season with a silver, while Japanese mainstay Hiroyasu Shimizu glided in with the bronze. Jan Bos and Gerard van Velde continued their stellar sprint stories with fourth and fifth, respectively.

Joe Cheek (8th) and Kip Carpenter (10th) continued to impress, softening the blow of losing 2002 Olympic 500m champion Casey Fitzrandolph due to a self-imposed sabbatical from the sport. Nick Pearson finished in a three-way tie for 16th.

That led to the women's and men's 1,500 meters race. Canada's Cindy Klassen, the World All-round Speed Skating champion, the first champion outside of Europe since 1979, had clinched the metric mile points title and wanted to build momentum going into Berlin.

Claudia Pechstein of Germany had a 20-point lead on American Jennifer Rodriguez and the latter needed to finish 21 points ahead of Pechstein to move up to second overall.

Alas, while Klassen and Rodriguez went 1-2 in the last 1,500m of their season, Germans took the next three spots; Anni Friesinger, Daniela Anschutz -- and Pechstein, which ensured her runner-up overall finish to Klassen.

Catherine Raney, the only other American in the field, finished 20th and last. In truth, however, her best race was still on deck.

Yevgeny Lalenkov of Russia gained 180 points on the prior two 1,500m races leading into its finale, while Derek Parra, the 2002 Olympic champion on the distance had gained only 120 in those same two events, and lost the lead to him as the final race on Friday played out. So Parra had to win by 11 points on Lanlenkov to win his first-ever career points title (Parra was third last year behind Adne Sondral of Norway and Aleksandr Kibalko of Russia).

It was not to be, however, as Parra could only muster a tie for eighth, and Lalenkov won the race and the points title going away.

The entire Dutch team on the 1,500m made the top six -- Ids Postma (runnerup), newcomer Ralf van der Rijst (3rd); Martin Hersman (4th) and Mark Tuitert (6th). Kyu-Hyuk Lee of Korea was the lone non-Euro in the top of the table (5th).

Parra wasn't even the best U.S. showing on the 1,500m. That distinction went to seventh place Cheek. Chris Callis (11th), Boutiette (14th) and Tim Hoffman (18th) were the other Americans.

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Saturday was sprint day, save for the women's 3,000m race. Both the men's and women's 500m would wrap up for the season here, and the first of two kilometer races.

Garbrecht-Enfeldt made it eight in a row this season in winning, with Lemay Doan, Svetlana Zhurova of Russia, Japanese star-in-waiting Shihomi Shinya and Pamela Zoellner of Germany taking up second to fifth. Witty was 13th and Sundstrom 17th.

The Dutch continued to kick booty on the men's sprints as well, with Wennemars (who led a sweep of the 1,000m later on Saturday, with van Velde, the defending Olympic champion) and Bos joining him on the podium) holding off Shimizu and welcoming Bos and van Velde in bronze and fourth.

Cheek and Carpenter followed in fifth and sixth, and Pearson ended his day in 16th. On the 1,000m, Cheek and Pearson were fourth and fifth, with Parra (9th) and Carpenter (tie 10th) all doing well with one kilo to go.

Rodriguez captured her third-ever victory on the World Cup, again on the 1,000m, and Witty provided a rare 1-2 US finish with Garbrecht-Enfeldt third. Marianne Timmer made a late surge for the top 5 of the overall points race with a fourth place, and Kotyuga rounded out the top 5. Sundstrom, Sannes and Elli Ochowicz placed 10th, 12th and 16th.

Clara Hughes, the Canadian who won both winter and summer Olympics medals in speed skating and cycling, needed to have a big-time gap between herself and Pechstein to have an outside shot at winning the 3,000m/5,000m combination season title.

Both skaters, however, were upstaged by Friesinger, who by virtue of her victory in the season's last long distance race for the ladies, would win two of the three 3K's she was involved in this season. Klassen was second, and 2002 Olympic 5,000m silver medallist Gretha Smit of the Netherlands was third.

Raney capped her best season to date by her fourth place showing, and was the only American who competed in it. Anschutz was fifth.

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So Sunday would mark the end of the World Cup season, with the last leg of the men's and women's 1,000m as well as the men's 5,000m.

Timmer wowed the home crowd at Thialf with her first victory of the season on the kilometer, and in shades of her 1998 Olympic triumph, was about a half-second better than Witty. Kotyuga, Zhurova and Sundstrom followed in that order. Sannes was seventh, Ochowicz 13th.

Wennemars took advantage of Wotherspoon's withdrawal from the 1,000m due to his bad back and kept the Orange crushing of the opposition going by likewise equaling Timmer's win, with van Velde second, only Cheek spoiled another Dutch podium monopoly with his bronze. Bos was fourth, Pearson fifth, and Carpenter seventh.

A Dutch sweep was not thwarted on the last race of the World Cup season, the men's 5,000m, as you could say they were in the top 5. Jochem Uytdehaage won it, followed by Bob deJong, Carl Verheijen in silver and bronze position.

Bart Veldkamp, an expatriate Dutchman who now skates for Belgium reached back into the past and finished ahead of World All-round Champion Gianni Romme (who will not skate any distance next weekend in Berlin since he didn't do well in the qualification process for the Single Distance championships). Parra finished 18th.

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Now that the season's races are over, here's the final fab five in each World Cup Speed Skating discipline. In addition, here's a look at how all of the Americans who participated in the 2003-03 campaign did overall.

Women's 500

1. Garbrecht-Enfeldt, 940 points 2. Lemay Doan, 816 3. Osuga, 617 4. Shinya, 578 5. Wang, 568

Americans: Witty (16th, 164), Sundstrom (19th, 112), Ochowicz (23rd, 78), Sannes (25th, 68), Rodriguez (35th, 34), Eva Rodansky (48th, 4), Ann Driscoll (52nd and last, 1).

Men's 500

1. Wotherspoon, 852 2. Wennemars, 642 3. Joji Kato (JPN), 538 4. van Velde, 473 5. Bos, 507

Americans: Cheek (8th, 403), Carpenter (9th, 371), Pearson (19th, 124), Tucker Fredericks (51st, 12), Lucas Mills (tie 53rd, 11), Parra (57th, 5), Callis (tie 62nd and last, 1).

Women's 1,000

1. Garbrecht-Enfeldt, 750 2. Witty, 616 3. Kotyuga, 416 4. Timmer, 414 5. Lemay Doan, 375

Other Americans: Sundstrom (7th, 354), Rodriguez (8th, 325), Ochowicz (14th, 134), Sannes (16th, 131).

Men's 1,000

1. Wennamars, 755 2. van Velde, 670 3. Bos, 558 4. Wotherspoon, 490 5. Cheek, 462

Other Americans: Pearson (6th, ,418), Carpenter (7th, 307), Parra (17th, 106), Callis (25th, 56).

Women's 1,500

1. Klassen, 530 2. Pechstein, 380 3. Rodriguez, 370 4. Friesinger, 290 5. Annamarie Thomas (NED), 252

Other Americans: Raney (16th, 75), Sarah Elliott (28th, 23), Sannes (29th, 22), Sundstrom (32nd, 17), Eva Rodansky (39th, 7).

Men's 1,500

1. Lalenkov, 460, (just the third Russian to win a season points title) 2. Parra, 376 3. Wennemars, 310 4. Kibalko, 252 5. Tuitert, 241

Other Americans: Callis (10th, 140), Hoffman (14th, 97), Boutiette (20th, 77), Cheek (28th, 40), Brady Thompson (33rd, 15).

Men's 5,000/10,000 combination

1. Verheijen, 460 2. deJong, 430 3. Uytdehaage, 410 4. Lasse Saetre (NOR), 237 5. Romme, 236

Americans: Parra (8th, 155), Callis (25th, 30), Chad Hedrick (26th, 22), Boutiette (28th, 21), Hoffman (43rd, 1).

Women's 3,000/5,000 combination

1. Pechstein, 445 2. Hughes, 380 3. Klassen, 349 4. Anschutz, 261 5. Raney, 252

Other Americans: Rodriguez (34th, 18), Kristine Holzer (37th, 10), Rodansky (46th, 2).

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Next weekend, the World Single Distance Championships will be held at the Berlin Sportforum oval. It is a three-day festival to determine who's the baddest skater over every one of the 10 distances contested on the speed skating calendar.

Stay tuned for coverage of this final event of the speed skating season right here at eSports.