AP News, March 10th, 2007
Jenny Wolf threw her arms wide in celebration as she glided over the ice, then covered her face with her hands. She couldn't believe what she saw on the scoreboard.
The German speedskater had just set a world record in the 500 meters that had stood for nearly six year, finishing in 37.04 seconds at the World Single Distances Speedskating Championships on Saturday at the Utah Olympic Oval.
"I couldn't believe it," said Wolf, who beat her personal best by more than half a second and also set the world record with a combined time of 74.42 seconds in the two heats. "When everybody was screaming so loud, (I knew) it must be something really fast."
Wolf's personal best in the 500 had been 37.71.
She upstaged American Shani Davis, who had just received a loud ovation from the U.S. fans when he won the men's 1,000. The cheers were even louder when the same fans realized what Wolf had done.
Wolf said she looked to the scoreboard, expecting to see a time of 37.4 or maybe 37.3 seconds. When she noticed the extra zero _ .04 _ on her time, she was shocked.
"During the race, I had no idea that I was so fast," she said.
Wolf bested the previous mark of 37.22, set in December 2001 by Canada's Catriona LeMay Doan. Wolf also broke Doan's record for the two heats with a combined time 0.3 seconds faster than the record Doan set in March 2001 on the same track.
"Catriona was always my role model. Now I'm faster than her and that's so big for me," Wolf said.
Davis, the Olympic gold medalist in the 1,000 last year and world record holder in the 1,000 and 1,500, was the first American to win an event at the four-day championships.
Davis finished in 1:07.28, just ahead of Canada's Denny Morrison (1:07.30). Lee Kyou-Hyuk of South Korea was third (1:07.51).
Morrison, who used to train with Davis in Calgary, went four pairs ahead of Davis and the American knew what he had ahead of him. When he finished, he smiled and waved as he slowed on the inside of the track and by the time he stepped on top of the podium he let loose with a wide grin.
And when he walked downstairs toward the locker room, Davis was back to being nonchalant.
"You've got to block it out mentally," Davis said of Morrison's time. "On any given day you can have maybe the top four positions reversed."
Wolf was the second skater to break a world record this week at the site of the 2002 Winter Games. On Friday, Lee Kang-Seok set the record in the men's 500 for both a single heat and combined time.
Wang Beixing of China was second in the women's 500 (74.53), followed by Sayuri Osuga of Japan (75.200).
