Lucasmakowsky.com

At the first World Cup in Europe, in Berlin, Lucas competed in the 5000m on Saturday and the 1500m on Sunday.

Click here to read Lucas's blog entry.

On the second day of the World Cup in Berlin, Lucas competed in the 5000m. Paired with Shani Davis, he raced to a time of 6:28.71, which was good for an 11th place and on top of that it was a nice improvement of the time he skated at last year’s World Cup in Berlin (6:32.28). Today’s gold-medalist was Sven Kamer, who needed 6:14.69 to complete his 5000m. 

"I’m really happy with my 5k today because it gave me a good idea of how things are coming technically. It’s definitely coming. 6:28 is the fastest I’ve gone in Europe in the 5k, so to start off the world cup circuit with that is definitely encouraging!"

 For complete results click here.

In today’s 1500m at the World Cup in Berlin Lucas was paired with Erben Wennemars, former world champion and world record holder in this distance. After a false start caused by Wennemars, Lucas skated a solid race and managed to keep up with Wennemars while skating in the final outer corner. Lucas then went on to beat him in the last 100m. Lucas clocked 1:47.39, good for a 13th place, where Wennemars needed 1:47.67 (18th). First was Friday’s gold-medalist in the 1000m Shani Davis, who finished in 1:44.47 (track record).

"The 1500m was alright today. I started to feel my legs pretty early in the race, which was not ideal, but I was able to hold it together technically to still finish strong. With a slip half way through the second last corner, I managed to keep my balance and get out in front of Erben on the back stretch. That helped me keep my speed and hold him off on my last outer. So overall it was good. I did some things well; just the speed didn’t come easy today. I can work with that!"

For complete results click here.

Speedskating-online/Petra Abbes

For more photos click here.