The 2007 World Sprint Speed Skating Championships were held in Vikingskipet, Hamar on 20 January and 21 January 2007. They were the 36th World Championships, and it was the third time the Championships were held in Hamar. Several of the world's top skaters, including the top two from the 2006 men's and women's standings, did not take part in the competition, while Lee Kang-Seok (men), Lee Sang-Hwa and Wang Beixing (women), all among the top three in the 500 meter World Cup rankings, did not take part as they are competing in other colliding tournaments.
Three-time world allround champion Anni Friesinger entered for the second time, after winning silver in 2004, and won gold by more than one samalog point, the greatest margin of victory since Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt's last title in 2003. She thus became the fourth woman to become world champion in both allround and sprint.
Conversely, the men's competition was the closest since Bae Ki-Tae won South Korea's first title, in 1990. The men's title went to a Korean for the third time in the tournament's history. Finland's Pekka Koskela led the tournament until two laps remained of the 1000 metres, but despite skating a better last lap than Lee he finished 0.065 points behind the Korean.
Read more about 2007 World Sprint Speed Skating Championships: Rules
Famous quotes containing the words world, speed and/or skating:
“Reason is man’s faculty for grasping the world by thought, in contradiction to intelligence, which is man’s ability to manipulate the world with the help of thought. Reason is man’s instrument for arriving at the truth, intelligence is man’s instrument for manipulating the world more successfully; the former is essentially human, the latter belongs to the animal part of man.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“For myself and my loved ones, I want the heat, which comes at the speed of light. I don’t want to have to hang about for the blast, which idles along at the speed of sound.”
—Martin Amis (b. 1949)
“In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)