Samuel schwarz was also allowed to cheer on saturday. The berlin native came in third over 1000 meters for his third podium finish in the world cup. Olympic champion and world champion lee sang-hwa from sud korea had to fight to the last centimeter this time to beat jenny wolf by a blink of an eye. Lee improved her track record by 0.22 seconds in 37.94 to win her fifth race of the season. It's never been this close this winter before.
"I am happy that the start worked out so well today. But on the home stretch, I didn't have the strength to get my leg forward," said jenny wolf. In 10.28 seconds she had a dazzling start time for the first 100 meters. "I can't remember the last time I stayed under 10.30," she said with a smile after losing to the south korean in the final sprint. In the overall ranking wolf is now second with 340 points behind the clearly leading lee (500).
For the second race on sunday wolf announced a new attack on lee. "But then she will have the advantage of being able to keep an eye on me. But I wanted to go one better, if possible," said jenny wolf.
Samuel schwarz was all smiles after his tactically excellent race. One week after his second place in nagano he came in third over 1000 meters in 1:10.10 minutes behind olympic champion shani davis from the USA (1:10.05) and the dutchman hein otterspeer (1:10.07). "It was such a hard run. In the last bend, I could hardly keep my feet," groaned the berlin native.
"But i fought, fought, fought. And I have been rewarded. Even if it was only five hundredths of a second to victory," he added. "This is what makes speed skating simply fun."In the overall ranking over 1000 meters schwarz improved with 210 points to the fourth place. Canadian denny morrison (275) in the lead.
For the german champion monique angermuller it didn't work out at all on the same distance after not completely recovered from the cold. In mabigen 1:19,14 it was enough for the berlinerin only to rank 13. Czech karolina erbanova caused a surprise by winning the first world cup of her career in 1:17,10 minutes. But she missed the ten year old track record of berlin's monique garbrecht-enfeldt (1:16,48) by a long way.