China's Gao Tingyu in action during the men's 500m race at the ISU Speed Skating World Cup in Calgary, Canada, December 10, 2021. /CFP
Canada's Laurent Dubreuil captured the gold in the men's 500m race at the International Skating Union (ISU) Speed Skating World Cup, while China's Gao Tingyu took the silver in Calgary, Canada on Friday.
The Canadian clocked a winning time of 33.778 seconds, followed by Gao in 33.876 and Japan's Yuma Murakami in 33.898.
On the women's events, Italy's Francesca Lollobrigida snatched her first World Cup title in the women's 3,000m race with a personal best of three minutes and 54.44 seconds, beating home skater Isabelle Weidemann who finished second also with a personal best, 3:55.37.
Weidemann followed suit all the way and thought she could reel her in towards the end, while Lollobrigida maintained her pace and countered the attack, pushing the skaters' game into another level.
"(Going into) the last corner, my coach (Maurizio) Marchetto said 'you can win'. So I was like, 'okay, I can win'," Lollobrigida said.
Olga Fatkulina of Russia clocked a personal best of 36.72 seconds to win the women's 500m, followed by Japan's Olympic champion Nao Kodaira in 36.81 and Russia's Angelina Golikova in 36.82.
Also on Friday, Nils van der Poel of Sweden claimed the men's 5,000m title after beating Davide Ghiotto of Italy and Ted-Jan Bloemen of Canada.