ERFURT, Germany -
After a slow start to the World Cup season, Canadian long-track speedskater Denny Morrison has found his groove.
He won the gold medal in the 1,500 metres Saturday with a track-record time of one minute 45.32 seconds. The victory came a week after Morrison won a pair of gold medals in the 1,000 at a World Cup stop in Russia.
Morrison, a native of Fort St. John, B.C., is just 10th in the 1,500 standings, due in part to the fact that he skipped a World Cup event earlier this season and had a poor time in another after a near-fall.
As a result, he was slotted to race in the fifth of 10 pairs at the Erfurt oval.
"I raced really early and I set the bar really high," Morrison said on a conference call. "I had to watch as all the strongest skaters in the world tried to beat my time and none of them did.
"So it was pretty cool to watch."
Trevor Marsicano was second in 1:46.00 and another American, Shani Davis, was third in 1:46.25. Lucas Makowsky of Regina was eighth in 1:47.75.
Morrison had a sluggish start to the campaign but turned things around two weeks ago at the world sprint championships in Moscow, when he won silver in the 1,000 metres.
"I guess you could say it's on the upswing," Morrison said of his season. "It's the best time to have your good races -- at the end of the year. It's when all the important races are."
Morrison will next race in the 1,000 metres and team pursuit Sunday before heading to the world all-around championships in Norway next weekend.
"To start off the season with subpar results was just a motivator for me," he said. "I knew that as frustrating as it was to not be on the podium at the first few World Cups, I knew that I had things to work on. I needed to make some changes, make some adjustments and just experiment. Make sure that everything was ideal as it could be with my equipment.
"It's all figured out now and I'm just happy to be skating well again. Hopefully these results continue through the (Vancouver) Games."
Norway's Haevard Boekko finished fifth in 1:46.49 but still leads the 1,500 standings with 255 points, 35 more than Davis.
Also Saturday, American Tucker Fredricks beat World Cup leader Yu Fengtong of China to win the men's 500 metres.
Fredricks became the first speedskater to break the 35-second mark at the Erfurt oval when he clocked 34.91, beating Yu's course record by .12 seconds.
Yu was second in 35.00 and Jan Smeekens of the Netherlands was third in 35.26. Jamie Gregg of Edmonton was eighth in 35.48.
Morrison won the 1,500 at last year's world championships but this was his first World Cup victory at that distance.
After his victory last week, Morrison noted that it wasn't quite the same since Davis had cut himself earlier and was racing on new equipment. While Davis still won bronze on Saturday, the big surprise was that Marsicano finished a quarter-second ahead of him.
"I think that this season he's been a little more focused on the sprints," Morrison said of Davis, his friend and former training partner. "So I think for the 1,500 metres, really he never had it in his last lap today and that's where I got him."
World Cup leader Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic cruised to her second win of the season in the 3,000 metres with a time of 4:03.65.
Daniela Anschuetz-Thoms of Germany was second in 4:05.14 and Renate Groenewold of the Netherlands was third in 4:06.60. Ottawa's Kristina Groves was seventh and Brittany Schussler of Winnipeg was 10th.
Jenny Wolf of Germany celebrated her 30th birthday with her 39th World Cup win, taking the women's 500 in 37.85 for her second victory over the distance in two days.
Wolf has already locked up the 500-metre World Cup title.
Yu leads the men's overall standings in the 500 metres with 936 points. Keiichiro Nagashima of Japan is second with 867 points after finishing fourth.
