THE CANADIAN PRESS
RICHMOND, B.C. — Kristina Groves skated the best race of her life Friday at the world single distances speedskating championships and she doesn’t have a medal to show for it.
A slight touch of a puck dividing the lanes on a turn turned a gold-medal skate in the women’s 1,500 into an automatic disqualification for the Ottawa native, leaving both competitors and teammates describing her as the true champion.
But her dominant time of one minute 57.75 seconds went for naught, with German star Anni Friesinger bumped up to gold at 1:58.66, Ireen Wust of the Netherlands to silver in 1:58.83, and Christine Nesbitt of London, Ont., to bronze at 1:58.88.
"If you touch a puck then you’re inside the line, it was like a centimetre, so it kind of sucks," said Groves, who handled the DQ with grace. "I was a little bummed about it, but honestly, that was one of the best races of my life.
"The disappointment of being disqualified will melt away pretty quickly when I think about how well I skated in that race."
Friesinger gave Groves a hug afterwards, telling her that she deserved to win, and she wasn’t the only one who felt that way at the Richmond Olympic Oval.
Gerard Kemkers, who coaches Wust, criticized the rule for punishing skaters too harshly and said he fought against its implementation at the start of the season.
"I think the people of the ISU got a shock out of this one as well," he said. "You have a clear winner of a race be disqualified, no one is happy. The whole skating world is like `Oh no.’ But on the other hand, it’s maybe the best that can happen because now they’re really going to think about it."
The podium was one of the unhappiest fans will ever see.
"It’s an absolute too tough punishment," said Friesinger. "I won gold today but it’s not so shiny as it could be."
Wust was even more blunt.
"I think it’s a stupid rule," said Wust. "Kristina is still the champion."
The only bright side for the Canadian team was that Nesbitt found her way to the podium, the squad’s second medal of the day after Denny Morrison earlier won silver in the men’s 1,000 to go with his bronze Thursday in the 1,500.
"Kristina beat us all fair and square as far as we’re concerned," said Nesbitt. "She beat us by a lot. I’m really quite lucky and Kristina’s quite unlucky."
Morrison was also of mixed emotions after the men’s 1,000, which had the same three medallists as Thursday’s 1,500 only in a different order.
On the rise American phenom Trevor Marsicano took gold in 1:08.96 to go with his silver Thursday, while teammate Shani Davis couldn’t grab a second straight world title, falling to third in 1:09.02.
Morrison clocked 1:09.00 and said that while happy, he’d have "nightmares" about missing gold by such a small margin.
"Definitely I think there were three or four areas in that race where I could have taken off tenths of seconds," said Morrison. "There was the opener, I had a little slip, the finish, I never shot my blade quite right (at the end).
"Any one of the three of us could have come in and won the race, you could see by how close the times were, and it was Trevor’s day today."
The 1,000 was Morrison’s most productive event this season, with six World Cup medals, two of them gold. Davis set a world record in the distance at last week’s World Cup in Salt Lake with a time of 1:06.42.