Sochi Olympics Speed Skating: Jorrit Bergsma knocks off Kramer in Dutch 10,000 meters sweep

Sven Kramer and Jorrit Bergsma

Sven Kramer stayed in the right lane this time.

No matter. He was again denied a gold medal in the speedskating race he wanted more than any other.

With a stunner of a finishing kick, Jorrit Bergsma knocked off country man and the world's greatest distance skater, winning the 10,000 meters with an Olympic-record time on Tuesday. "I'm still dazed," Bergsma said.

Kramer gave away a sure gold in speedskating's longest event with an inexplicable mistake while changing lanes at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

This time, he simply got beat by — almost inevitably at the Sochi Games — a fellow Dutchman.
Bergsma turned in the fastest sea-level time ever, 12 minutes, 44.45 seconds, and shattered the Olympic record of 12:58.55 set by South Korea's Lee Seung-hoon four years ago.

Kramer settled for silver in 12:49.02. The bronze went to 37-year-old Bob de Jong.

While the order of finish didn't go as expected, the guys on the podium were no surprise at all.

It was another orange sweep, the fourth 1-2-3 finish for the Netherlands at Adler Arena, its speedskating medal haul climbing to 19 out of a possible 27.

Read more: Jorrit Bergsma knocks off Kramer in 10,000 meters - US News

Sochi Olympics: Dominance begins: Netherlands sweeps men's 5,000 - by Paul Myerberg

Gold - Silver and Bronze for the Netherlands

In the world of men's speed skating — and in the long-distance races in particular — the rest of the world is chasing the Netherlands, a country that views Olympic dominance as a quadrennial birthright.

Theirs is a skating powerhouse that stems in large part from the Netherlands' devotion to the sport. While soccer rules on sunny days, speed skating occupies the country's undivided attention throughout the winter, and during Olympic years in particular.

But perhaps never in its skating history have the Dutch experienced a day quite like Saturday, when a trio of skaters completed a clean sweep of the medal podium in the 5,000 meters

Read more: Dominance begins: Netherlands sweeps men's 5,000