HAMAR, Norway — Joy Beune confirmed she’s the new Dutch distance queen, Czech Martina Sablikova won a record-tying 27th medal and the U.S. made its first men’s team sprint podium to open the World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships.
Beune won the 3000m in 4:00.39, overtaking the 37-year-old Sablikova by 18 hundredths on Thursday at the Viking Ship.
Beune, 25, won the 5000m at the 2024 Worlds and has become the Netherlands’ top women’s distance skater following the retirement of triple 2022 Olympic gold medalist Irene Schouten last year.
Sablikova, who made her Olympic debut in 2006 and won her first world medal in 2007, tied German Claudia Pechstein’s record for career world medals in individual events and has won a 3000m medal at each of the last 13 World Championships dating to 2009.