SABLIKOVA Martina

Martina Sáblíková

Martina Sáblíková Cs-Martina_Sablikova.ogg [ˈmarcɪna ˈsaːbliːkovaː] (help·info) (born 27 May 1987 in Nové Město na Moravě) is a Czech speedskater, specializing in long distance races. She is an Olympic gold medal winner and a multiple World champion. She is the elder sister of fellow speedskater Milan Sáblík.

Martina Sáblíková

As a junior, Sáblíková already achieved some notable results during international tournaments. In 2005, she came seventh in the 5,000 m during the World Single Distance Championships. On 18 November 2005, she skated the 3,000 m junior world record 4:00.69 in Salt Lake City. She became Czech youth champion in 1999, 2001, and 2004.

In the 2006 European allround championships in Hamar, she finished fourth overall, by placing third at the 3,000 m and winning the 5,000 m. At the 5,000 meter she surprisingly beat favorite Claudia Pechstein.

Martina Sáblíková

At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, she finished fourth in the 5,000 m, behind Clara Hughes, Claudia Pechstein, and Cindy Klassen. During her race against Cindy Klassen she was more than 3 seconds faster in the last round, but eventually missed the bronze medal by a second.

Because of Sáblíková's results, her position on the all time world ranking, the Adelskalender, increased from the 94th to the 15th place within a year. In March 2006, she skated a world record at the 10,000 m, beating Clara Hughes's former best time by more than 11 seconds.

The next year she won her first major tournament, the 2007 European Speed Skating Championships in Collalbo, with an outdoor world record samalog score 162.954 points. She won both the 3,000 m and the 5,000 m in an outdoor world record time. She did not perform so well at the World alround championships in Heerenveen, where she finished fifth, but she managed to win the 2006–07 Speed Skating World Cup on the 3,000 and 5,000 m track. At the end of the season she won two gold medals at the 2007 World Single Distance Speed Skating Championships in Salt Lake City on 3,000 m and 5,000 m tracks. She also beat here the 5,000 m track world record and set it for 6:45.61, 1.3 seconds faster than the previous record of Claudia Pechstein.

On 15 March 2007, Sáblíková became the first female speedskater to skate a 10,000 m below 14 minutes when she did 13:48.33 in Calgary.[1] She improved her own one year old world record by almost 20 seconds. In December 2007, she took the 18th place in the poll European Sportsperson of the Year of the Polish Press Agency.[2] She also won the title of the Sportsperson of the Year of the Czech Republic twice – in 2007 and 2009.[3]

One week before the start of the 2007–08 World Cup season Sáblíková fell during her training, and fractured her humerus and stretched ligaments.[4] Although the injury limited her training in the beginning, she had an excellent season, and finally got the title with 6 out of 7 world cup wins (including the final) at the 3,000 m and 5,000 m track.[5] She also finished 9th at the 1,500 m track.[6]

On 13 January, she took bronze at the 2008 European allround championships in Kolomna, Russia. On 12 January, the first day of the event, she improved her personal best at the 500 m track, her weakest distance, skating the time of 40.58 seconds. However, it was still too slow to compete with the best skaters, and so she finally finished 3rd despite winning the 3,000 m and 5,000 m distances.[7] [8]. On 10 February she finished 5th at the World Allround Championships in Heerenveen, again winning the 5,000 m track but with a poor 500 m track result.[9]

On 9 March 2008 she won gold at the 5,000 m track at the World Single Distance Championships in Nagano, Japan.[10] However, she was very disappointed with her 3,000 m performance two days before, when she finished 4th.[11]

On 11 January 2009 she repeated her previous bronze performance at the European allround championships[12] despite her traditionally weak performance at the 500 m track and surprising 4th place at the 3,000 m track.[13] However on 8 February she took gold at the World allround championships in Hamar after setting new Czech national record at the 500 m track 40.28 seconds and winning the 3,000 m and 5,000 m tracks. It was the first world alround medal in her career.[14][15] On the 1 February 2009 Martina Sáblíková and her fellow Czech competitors Andrea Jirků and Karolína Erbanová won the team pursuit competition at the World Cup Final in Erfurt, setting new Czech national record for 3:05.32. After the leading Dutch team did not finish the race, they also won the whole 2008/2009 World Cup.[16]

Martina Sáblíková and Milan Sáblík are a rare example of sister and brother both holding world records in the same sport at the same time; Martina holds the (senior) world records in the 5,000 m and 10,000 m events (both from March 2007), while Milan shares the junior world record for the team pursuit with fellow Czech junior skaters Pavel Kulma and Zdeněk Haselberger (from November 2007). Sáblíková's successes are even more surprising given that there is no speedskating stadium in the Czech Republic. Because of this, Sáblíková's coach Petr Novák had to devise several unorthodox but succesful training methods.