Speedskating: Bergsma sets world record in women’s 1,500-meter race

Kearns • Each time Heather Bergsma took the hand-held oxygen tank away from her face, she smiled. She couldn't help it.

The 26-year-old from High Point, N.C., kept her skates on after one of the best races of her life, too. She slowly crept along the ice at the Utah Olympic Oval.

She was doing her best to catch her breath. Can't blame her, either. For the second time in a week, the American long-track speedskater set a world record — this time it was in the women's 1,500-meter event on Day 2 of the ISU World Cup stop in Utah. Bergsma skated the 1,500 in a blistering 1 minute and 50 seconds.

She now owns world record times in the 1,500 and 1,000. And she took both records from close friend and rival Brittany Bowe.

"I think we both push each other to a top level," Bergsma said, still trying to catch her breath. "I know last weekend I fed her fire after taking it in the 1,000 and she went and did the 1,500. I'm sure tomorrow [Bowe's] going to bring her A-game."

All indications through the first two weeks of the World Cup circuit point to that being the likely scenario in Sunday's finale, the 1,000-meter race.

Bergsma had roughly an hour after her fourth-place finish in the 500 meters Saturday to prepare for the final heat of the 1,500 against Bowe. As the two jockeyed for position, chasing one another down around each turn and straightaway, Bergsma said all she could hear from the announcer were jumbled screams of being on a world-record pace.

"I was trying to make sure that I was at least somewhere near Brittany during the race," she said. "Because I knew if I was going to be right there, it was going to be a good time." She was right there and she caught Bowe, breaking the record of 1 minute and 51 seconds set last weekend in Calgary. Bowe, who now has a circuit-leading five World Cup podium finishes this year, was third in the 500-meter race Saturday.

Ted-Jan Bloemen had a similar record-breaking afternoon. The 29-year-old Dutch-born skater, who now competes for Canada, broke the world record in the men's 10,000-meter event, finishing the race in 12 minutes and 36 seconds.

Bloemen, whose father is Canadian, had to look on in the final heat as Dutch skaters Sven Kramer and Jorrit Bergsma — Heather's husband — had their shot at dethroning the new king of the 10,000-meter race.

They couldn't.

It was Bloemen who, in fact, dethroned Kramer, whose record of 12 minutes and 41 seconds was set in Kearns on March 10, 2007.

"For me, I think the 10K is a beautiful distance," Bloemen said. "You can see people suffer, you can see people finding their second breath, accelerating near the end, dying [off] sometimes."

ckamrani@sltrib.com

Twitter: @CKTribune