Martina Sáblíková

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Women's Speed Skating
Medal record
Martina Sáblíková
Competitor for Czech Republic
World Championships
Gold	2007 Salt Lake City	3000 m
Gold	2007 Salt Lake City	5000 m
Gold	2008 Nagano	5000 m
European Championships
Gold	2007 Collalbo	Allround
Bronze	2008 Kolomna	Allround
World Junior Championships
Silver	2006 Erfurt	Allround

Martina Sáblíková ['marcɪna 'saːbliːkovaː] (help·info) (born May 27, 1987 in Žďár nad Sázavou) is a Czech speedskater, specializing in long distance races. She is the elder sister of fellow speedskater Milan Sáblík.

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.

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 March 15, 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] In January 2008 she received the title of the Czech Sportsperson of the Year 2007.^[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]

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).

Personal records
Women's speed skating
Distance	Time	Date	Location	Notes
500 m	40.58	2008-01-12	Kolomna
1000 m	1:17.87	2005-11-19	Salt Lake City
1500 m	1:54.55	2007-03-03	Calgary
3000 m	3:55.83	2007-11-16	Calgary
5000 m	6:45.61	2007-03-11	Salt Lake City	World record^[12]
10000 m	13:48.33	2007-03-15	Calgary	World record

[edit] In-line skating and cycling

Martina Sáblíková also competed in several inline speed skating and cycling races as a part of her summer preparation for the skating season. In 2004, she finished 16th at the Junior Inline Speed Skating World Championships on the 20 km track in Sulmona. In 2006, she won the marathon (42.2 km) at the Czech Inline Speed Skating Championships in Plzeň and in 2007 the halfmarathon (21.6 km) in Ostrava.^[13] In 2007, she also took bronze in individual time trial on the 24 km track at the European U23-Junior Road Cycling Championships in Sofia and another bronze on the 18 km track at the Czech Road Cycling Championships in Žďár nad Sázavou.^[14]