“I had to leave with honour”: Top speed skater Martina Sáblíková finishes fifth in final 5000m race at World Championships
While battling illness, Martina Sáblíková, who ranks among Czechia’s best ever speed skaters, finished in fifth place in the Women’s 5000m race at the World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships held in Hamar, Norway. This is the first time in her career that the former Olympic, World and European Champion did not win a medal in the event, but Ms. Sáblíková, who plans to retire after next season, nonetheless received great applause from fans at the finish line.
Born on May 27th 1987 in Nové Město na Moravě, both Martina Sáblíková and her younger brother Milan first came into contact with the world of speed skating through the coach and former skater Petr Novák. Her early training met with difficulty; with no speed-skating rinks available in the Czech Republic, coach Novák had to be creative with the format and location of their training.
Success was achieved at an early age, with Martina Sáblíková becoming the Czech youth champion in 1999, 2001 and 2004. Then, on the international stage, she came seventh in the 5000m during the World Single Distances Championships in 2005, and the same year achieved the 3000m junior world record in Salt Lake City, with a time of 4:00.69.
During the years that followed her initial successes, Ms. Sáblíková continued to break various world records and triumph at international competitions. She won two gold medals at the 2007 World Single Distances Championships in the 3000m and 5000m races, again held in Salt Lake City, setting a new world record of 6:45.61 in the 5000m.
Then, at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada, she won two gold medals and one bronze, making her the first Czech to win gold twice at the same Winter Olympic Games. At the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, she defended her gold in the 5000m, while also taking silver in the 3000m.
Now Martina Sáblíková is starting to draw her active speed-skating career to a close. At this year’s World Single Distances Championships in Norway, held between March 13th and 16th, she came fifth in the 5000m. This followed tough deliberations, as a fever had made her participation uncertain.
“We were still deciding two hours before the race whether she should go to the start or not. She came to me saying she had a fever, but she said she would enter today because of the spectators,” said Petr Novák after the event, noting that Ms. Sáblíková was visibly not up to her usual standard.
Gold went to Italy’s Francesca Lollobrigida, who was full of praise for her Czech colleague:
“She’s a really good friend of mine. We talked before the race, and she told me that she didn’t know if she could make it … She didn’t know how she would skate. I know that when I skate with her, she can give me the best of herself, and vice versa, I can give her the best of myself. It’s like we always support each other.”
Commenting on what is set to have been her final race at the World Single Distances Championships, Martina Sáblíková said:
“I accomplished what I wanted. I went to the start with the idea that I had to leave with honour, and I hope I did.”
