Skating in the penultimate pair, he powered around the rink and set a new championship record of six minutes, 9.65 seconds to seal his sixth title over the distance, ahead of his team mates Jorrit Bergsma and Douwe de Vries, who finished second and third respectively.

"A track record in Thialf feels like a world record," Kramer said.

"It's great to win today.

"Everyone has been looking forward to this and you can feel it on the ice."

The women's 500m had proved to have been an elusive event for the United States, as they had never won a medal in the discipline, but Heather Richardson and Brittany Bowe ended that record after they finished in the gold and silver medal positions.

Richardson had been beaten by Bowe in yesterday's 1,000m, but was able to claim revenge over her fellow American by posting a time of 37.629sec, edging Bowe's 37.788.

Heather Richardson (right) and Brittany Bowe (left) won gold and silver for the US in the women's 500m ©Getty Images



Japan's Nao Kodaira rounded off the medal positions as she claimed bronze, while South Korean reigning Olympic champion Lee Sang-hwa struggled with injury and could only finish fifth in defence of the title she had won in 2012 and 2013.

The US celebrated further success in Heerenveen as multiple world champion Shani Davis claimed gold in the men's 1,000m with a time of 1min 08.57sec.

Despite struggling for the perfect form this season, he defeated Pavel Kulishnikov of Russia and home athlete Kjeld Nuis, who earned the silver and bronze medals respectively.

"I have never been so emotional after the race," Davis said.

"I have been struggling all year.

"I talked endlessly with all my coaches.

"The last two or three weeks I started to improve and today I was finally able to nail it."

Shani Davis returned to form to win the men's 1000m title ©Getty Images





While there was joy for American fans, the home crowd were left shocked in the women's team pursuit as the Dutch squad, the Sochi 2014 Olympic champions, were unable to win their third consecutive world title.

They were beaten by the Japanese trio of Ayaka Kikuchi, Miho Takagi and Nana Takagi, who secured the world title, while Russia took bronze.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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