RICHMOND, British Columbia, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- Ireen Wust of the Netherlands won a gold medal in her second straight Olympics Sunday and disappointed the partisan crowd in the process.
Wust won the women's 1,500-meter speed skating race, adding a gold at the Vancouver Games to a gold in the 3,000-meter event and a bronze in the 1,500 she collected in Turin.
Her win four years ago was a surprising one since she defeated defending champion Claudia Pechstein of Germany and defending silver medalist Renate Groenewold of the Netherlands.
Wust's victory Sunday was a surprise as well to the Canadian fans, who had hopes of a 1-2 finish for their top skaters. Wust skated in the 15th of 18th pairs at the Richmond Oval and her time of 1:56.89 was more than a second better than what had been the best effort to that point.
Canada's Kristina Groves and Christine Nesbitt were still to skate, however, and they were expected to better Wust's time. Groves won the bronze medal in the 3,000-meter race earlier in the Olympics and Nesbitt was the gold medalist over 1,000 meters.
Groves skated in the next-to-last pairing and her intermediate times were quicker than those of Wust.
With the crowd screaming its encouragement, Groves was more than a half second quicker through 1,100 meters. But she slowed over the final lap and finished .25 of a second behind.
Nesbitt was in the last pairing and after a quick start she also faded badly.
Groves managed to win the silver medal, however, while the bronze went to 3,000-meter winner Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic. Nesbitt finished sixth.
Sunday's competition was the final individual women's race of the Olympics. The team pursuit event will be held Saturday.
