Netherlands flex muscles at World Cup Finals

Half of the day's eight races were won by the Dutch including the men's first 500m division A where only Norway's Håvard Holmefjord Lorentzen, who won gold at last month's Winter Olympics, broke the top six.

Hein Otterspeer, Jan Smeekens and Ronald Mulder stormed to the podiums, with just two hundredths of a second separating the trio.

Compatriot Marrit Leenstra won the 1000m division A race with a time of 1:15.82, ahead of Hege Bøkko and Yekaterina Shikhova.

Meanwhile in the men's event it was PyeongChang champion Kjeld Nuis in pole position ahead of Kai Verbij, while Lorentzen reached his second podium, coming third with a time of 1:09.45.

And the 3000m ladies race was won comfortably by the Netherlands' Antoinette de Jong, who came third in PyeongChang, ahead of Marina Zueva and Ivanie Blondin.

It seemed the only discipline not dominated by the Dutch were the team pursuits, as their ladies came second, separating Japan and Germany, while Norway, Italy and Japan completed the men's podium.

Norwegians also fared well individually, with Olympic bronze medallist Sverre Lunde Pedersen skating to first place in the men's 5000m, ahead of Alexander Rumyantsev and Marcel Bosker.

Elsewhere, the first 500m in the ladies' division A saw Karolina Erbanova of the Czech Republic win by a hundredth of a second, ahead of Austria's Vanessa Herzog.

Russians Angelina Golikova and Olga Fatkulina came third and fourth in what was a tight contest, with just 0.17 seconds between first and fourth place.

Going in to the final day, Lorentzen leads the men's standings on 689 points while Japan's Miho Takagi leads the ladies by a margin of almost 200 points.

Sportsbeat 2018