Netherlands’ Kjeld Nuis and Marcel Bosker complete dominant display on ISU World Cup opening day

Kjeld Nuis and Marcel Bosker completed a dominant display for the Netherlands in Stavanger as they added to Jutta Leerdam and Irene Schouten’s earlier golds on the opening day of the ISU World Cup event.

Olympic 1500m champion Nuis grabbed gold with a winning time of 1:08.76 despite being unimpressed with some ‘sloppy’ racing.

He beat Tatsuya Shinhama in the penultimate pairing of the day as the Japanese skater settled for silver while teammate Kazuya Yamada finished third with a career-first World Cup podium finish.

Bosker seized an opportunity to compete in the mass start after dropping out of 5000m qualification through illness and soared to a win with a time of 7:57.11.

It was a career-first mass start gold for the Dutchman as Switzerland’s Livio Wenger and Belgium’s Bart Swings came out on top in a final bunch sprint to take silver and bronze.

In the women’s, Leerdam and Schouten bounced back from disappointment in Beijing to win gold in their respective events.

Leerdam took on China’s Han Mei in the final pairing of the 1000m, and the world champion finished 0.26 seconds ahead of leader Miho Takagi of Japan, clocking 1:15.26.

Despite bringing herself level with leader Takagi in the overall standings, the Dutch skater will skip next week’s round in Poland.

After being relegated to the long distance B division due to her eighth place 3000m finish in Beijing , Louchen stormed to gold in the Mass Start.

She joined a three-strong breakaway and took the win after a powerful last lap, leaving Valerie Maltais and Mia Kilburg-Manganello in second and third with a time of 8:36.25.