Japan smash speed skating world record as Netherlands make up for lost time in Calgary

Adding another gold to their already-impressive collection, Miho Takagi, Nana Takagi and Ayaka Kikuchi made light work of the Netherlands in the final as both teams honed in on a new world's best.

Heading into the last 200m with a 1.29s lead, Japan did more than enough to keep their counterparts at bay to stop the clock at 2:53.88.

The Dutch team were in with a chance too, only for Lotte van Beek to crash in the final stages as their bid for gold fell just short, though a silver medal was no bad way to end their week.

But despite the win, Miho Takagi knows this was far from a perfect display.

"We have trained together for years now and we have all improved individually this year," she said.

"I don't know who will skate next week (in Salt Lake City). This race was not perfect yet. The last time we skated in this particular line-up was three years ago and we were not able to execute everything perfectly today.

"We have four members in our team and we want to bring it up to a level where it doesn't matter for the outcome in which line-up we actually skate."

Meanwhile the Dutch men's team made up for their disappointment on home ice by taking team pursuit gold in a time of 3:36.11.

Finishing tenth in Heerenveen three weeks ago was not what had been expected of the team but they bounced back in Calgary, with Sven Kramer coming in for Jorrit Bergsma and joining Jan Blokhuijsen and Koen Verweij.

Japan took silver and Norway clinched the bronze, with this a vital effort in the bid for Olympic qualification.

There was also a Dutch winner in the men's 1000m as Kai Verbij took gold after fastest finisher Pavel Kulizhnikov was disqualified. This was to be Verbij's second individual World Cup effort, while compatriot Kjeld Nuis took silver and bronze went to Havard Holmefjord Lorentzen of Norway.

Finally, the United States' Heather Bergsma took advantage of a crash from Nao Kodaira to take 1000m women's World Cup victory. Bergsma clocked 1:13.37 to beat Yekaterina Shikhova of Russia into silver while Marrit Leenstra secured bronze, with the two separated by just 0.02s.