Dutch skaters clean sweep men's 1,000m medals at speed skating World Cup

Dutch skaters dominated the men's 1,000 meters race here on Sunday with a clean sweep of the medals at the speed skating World Cup.

Thomas Krol clocked a winning time of one minute and 6.448 seconds with Kjeld Nuis and Hein Otterspeer taking the silver and bronze in 1:06.867 and 1:06.959 respectively.

Meanwhile, Takagi Miho of Japan dominates the women's 1,500m as she beat the rest of the field by nearly a second and a half to capture her second gold in this World Cup in Salt Lake City. Following her triumph in the 1,000m on Saturday, the Japanese star clocked a time of 1:49.99, just 0.16 seconds shy of her own world record, for her third consecutive victory in the 1,500m this season.

"The goal was to skate under one minute and 50 seconds and I managed. I'm very happy to pull that off under these circumstances (not the ideal low air pressure due to weather conditions)," said Takagi.

Takagi's compatriot Sato Ayano finished in 1:51.468 to take the silver with the bronze going to Antoinette de Jong of the Netherlands, who crossed the line in 1:51.722.

In the second men's 500m race, Morishige Wataru of Japan was crowned with a time of 33.997 seconds. Artem Arefyev of Russia came in second in 34.003 while Laurent Dubreuil of Canada was third in 34.053.

Also on Sunday, Ivanie Blondin of Canada beat Marijke Groenewoud of the Netherlands and Sofie Karoline Haugen from Norway to claim the women's mass start title and the United States snatched the gold in the men's team pursuit ahead of Norway and Italy.