HEERENVEEN, Netherlands – The Canadian men’s sprint team won gold while Alex Boisvert-Lacroix added bronze in the 500 metres at the ISU long-track speedskating World Cup on Friday.

Gilmore Junio of Calgary, Vincent De Haitre of Cumberland, Ont., and Alexandre St-Jean of Quebec City finished first in one minute 19.75 seconds at Thialf Oval. Russia was second (1:21.27) and the host Dutch team took the bronze (1:21.29).

“Today’s race was textbook, it went pretty much the way we envisioned it,” said Junio. “Alex was able to keep our speed up in the second lap and Vince, who’s probably one of the best in the world at skating the third lap in this event, did the rest. I don’t think we could have raced any better than that.”

Pavel Kulizhnikov won gold in the men’s 500 in 34.48. Russia teammate Aleksey Yesin was second (34.65) and Boisvert-Lacroix of Canada finished third (34.78).

“This week I was happy to be here in Heerenveen because this is where I’ve almost always had my best races,” Boisvert-Lacroix said. “This is where I had my first top-10 results in group A races, and also several podiums in group B.

“And today I executed my race plan almost perfectly. I did everything I set out to do in every section.”

Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic won her fourth consecutive 3,000-metre race of the season. She finished first in 4:03.50, nearly two seconds faster than Annouk van der Weijden of the Netherlands. Russian skater Olga Graf was third.

Lee Sang-hwa of South Korea won the first women’s 500 of the weekend in 37.59 seconds to solidify her lead atop the World Cup standings. Lee, who won both 500s last weekend in Inzell, was 0.27 of a second faster than American Brittany Bowe. Heather Richardson-Bergsma of the United States was third.

The Dutch team of Sven Kramer, Jorrit Bergsma and Jan Blokhuijsen won the men’s team pursuit in 3:43.77. Norway and Russia also reached the podium while Canada finished eighth.

Only two teams completed the women’s team sprint, with the Netherlands edging Russia to move to the top of the season standings. A fall knocked out the Canadian team of Marsha Hudey of White City, Sask., Kaylin Irvine of Calgary and Heather McLean of Winnipeg.

———

With files from The Associated Press.