Canada's Christine Nesbitt skates in the ladies' 1500 metres at the Essent ISU speed skating World Cup in Astana, November 26, 2011.SHAMIL ZHUMATOV/Reuters
Christine Nesbitt earned a gold medal on Saturday in the women's 1,500-metre race at a speedskating World Cup.
The London, Ont., native finished in one minute 56.10 seconds, 0.67 seconds ahead of Germany's Claudia Pechstein. Ireen Wust of the Netherlands won bronze (1:57.00).
Winnipeg's Cindy Klassen was fifth (1:57.42).
Also, Germany's Jenny Wolf won the women's 500 metre race in 37.984 seconds. South Korea's Lee Sang-hwa took silver (37.985) and Japan's Nao Kodaira placed third (37.99).
Nesbitt finished eighth in the 500 with a time of 38.47 seconds.
"It (my 500-metre race today) made me confident for the 1,500," said Nesbitt. "Because I talked to my coaches, to Xiuli (Wang) and Mark (Wild) before, that I wanted to start really hard and just experiment and see what I can do when I start fast.
"I knew I had good speed and it was coming pretty easily."
In men's competition, Jan Smeekens of the Netherlands won gold in the 500 metres (35.05). Mo Tae-bum of South Korea was second (35.06) and American Tucker Fredricks won bronze (35.19).
Calgary's Gilmore Junio was sixth (35.238) in the 500.
Also, Sven Kramer of the Netherlands won the 5,000 metres with a time of 6:13.83. Fellow Dutchman Jorrit Bergsma earned silver (6:15.40) and France's Alexis Contin was third (6:17.43).