China scorch to thrilling team sprint gold at Heerenveen World Cup

China’s team sprint stars reckon unity and togetherness fired them to a scorching gold medal at the Speed Skating World Cup in Heerenveen.

Lian Ziwen, Yang Tao and Ning Zhongyan joined forces to topple hosts the Netherlands on Sunday after stopping the clock in a red-hot time of 1.19:55.

Ning delivered a breathtaking final lap to overhaul a 0.32s deficit and crash the Dutch party as the USA finished third.

And the 23-year-old said: “We have a very good team spirit, and we train together a lot.

“The team sprint is a good event to improve my speed at the start of the individual 1000m and 1500m.”

The Netherlands did have success elsewhere, however, with Olympic champion Irene Schouten claiming gold in the women’s 3000m event with a track record time of 3:54.04.

The result took her to the top of the rankings in the event ahead of the previous round’s winner Ragne Wiklund, who bagged bronze.

South Korea’s Min-Sun Kim made it two golds from two this season in the women’s 500m, with Austria’s Vanessa Herzog beating another Dutch representative, Jutta Jeerdam, by 0.03 seconds to complete the podium.

Olympic gold medal holder Erin Jackson improved on her last round, but this was only good enough for fourth.

The men’s 1500m had kicked off a good day for the hosts, with Olympic gold and silver medalists Kjeld Nuis and Thomas Krol getting silver and bronze respectively.

They were beaten by 22-year-old University of Calgary student Connor Howe, who also tops the category’s rankings after two rounds.

The Canadian, who clocked a time of 1:43.38, said: “I saw a lot of fast times today, and I thought I could get a 1.43.”