The 2007 World Allround Speed Skating Championships were held in the indoor arena Thialf in Heerenveen, Netherlands on 9 February, 10 February and 11 February 2007. The Championships were three-day allround events, with the skaters completing four distances before the final championship standings are determined based on the samalog system. The organising body, the Koninklijke Nederlandsche Schaatsenrijders Bond (KNSB) celebrated its 125-year anniversary with full stands on all three days.
Athletes from the host country, the Netherlands, won both the men's and the women's event; Sven Kramer set a world record on the men's 10,000 metres on his way to the European and World Allround double, while Ireen Wüst won by nearly two points after being narrowly beaten by Martina Sáblíková at the European Championships. For the first time since 1979, the male and female World Champion came from the same country. Defending champion Shani Davis finished sixth after losing time on the two longest distances, while former sprint World Champion Erben Wennemars debuted at the World Allround Championships with a fifth place. Last year's female champion, Cindy Klassen, finished third, a quarter of a point behind Anni Friesinger, who did not compete in 2006.
Read more about 2007 World Allround Speed Skating Championships: Rules, External Link and Reference
Famous quotes containing the words world, speed and/or skating:
“How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.”
—Karl Kraus (1874–1936)
“It was undoubtedly the feeling of exile—that sensation of a void within which never left us, that irrational longing to hark back to the past or else to speed up the march of time, and those keen shafts of memory that stung like fire.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Good writing is a kind of skating which carries off the performer where he would not go, and is only right admirable when to all its beauty and speed a subserviency to the will, like that of walking, is added.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)