HEERENVEEN: SUCCESSFUL RACES WITH THREE WORLD RECORDS
During the 10th Masters International Sprint in Heerenveen on Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 March a total of 69 season best and 40 personal best records were skated by 60 participants, mainly from the Netherlands, but also from Belgium, Norway and Great Britain. The Long Distance Race (LDR) on 15th March was skated with a little bit less participants than in previous years, but still it was a nice international field of 47 skaters, with participants from Belgium, Great Britain, Norway, Germany and even Australia.
In the long distance races 52 SB, 31 PB and even 3 Masters World Records were skated! All these world records were skated at the 10.000 m. In the ladies 10.000 meter group, there were two participants, Tialda Gerritsma (L50) and Ciska Start (L55), both from the Netherlands. They raced against each other with a fantastic result under eighteen minutes! Ciska was responsible for a new world record Ladies 55, with a time of 17:57,44.
In the final quartet of the 10.000 m there were a number of participants who made an attempt for a new world record. Two of these men were very successful.
Arjan Bakker improved the M55 record, which was on name of the Norwegian Ragnvald Næss (14:55,21), to a sublime new record of 14:34,88!
Furthermore John van der Vlugt pulverized the world record in the age group M60, which was held since 2006 by Kees Verdouw (15:49,07), to a fantastic new record of 15:05,30.
Congratulations for these new record holders with their new world records!
All results and classifications can be found on our special “LDR / Sprint” page.
We wish you all a good end of the season and nice and healthy summer. Looking forward to see you again next season!
Monique Vergeer
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