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Speed skater Clara Hughes poured on the speed over the final lap to snatch the gold medal away from teammate Cindy Klassen in Saturday's 5,000 metres at the Torino Olympic Winter Games. With Klassen having clocked the time to beat, Hughes, 33, pulled away from three-time defending champion Claudia Pechstein of Germany to win the final pairing - and her first-ever gold medal.
"I am speechless, honestly," Hughes told CBC Sports. "I just believed in myself and knew that my strength would be there at the finish."
"I just believed in myself until the last stride. It almost killed me, but that's what it took to win the Olympics today."
Pechstein settled for the silver medal, bumping Klassen to bronze.
Hughes, who also nudged out Klassen to clinch the bronze in the 5,000 at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, erased an enormous deficit of nearly four seconds over the final five laps.
It was a remarkably display of determination as Hughes trailed by nearly four seconds midway through the 12 1/2 lap marathon.
"I just felt like my body and brain went to a whole other planetary system," she said. "The race started with five laps to go and that's when I knew I could fight."
Klassen set Canadian records with five medals at Turin and six all told, but so did Hughes as the first multiple-medallist in both the Summer and Winter Olympics.
Hughes claimed silver in last week's team pursuit, to go with two bronze she won in cycling at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games.
Ottawa's Kristina Groves maintained lap times of approximately 33 seconds in the fourth pairing and held the provisional lead of 7:03.95 until Daniela Anschuetz Thoms of Germany lowered it by 1.13 seconds in the sixth.
Groves wound up sixth overall, but still leaves Turin with silvers medals in the 1,500 and team pursuit.
Competing in the seventh of eight pairings with Czech teenager Martina Sablikova, Klassen opened swiftly and, rather than set a comfortable pace, kept churning, leading by as much as five seconds at the 3,000-metre mark and 5.49 seconds through 4,200.
Sablikova rallied over the final two laps to finish fourth in 7:01.38.
Klassen was, unquestionably, the story of the Games, departing Turin as Canada's most prolific Olympian ever.
She also won gold in the 1,500, silvers in the 1,000 and the inaugural team pursuit, and bronze in the 3,000.
Klassen is the first Canadian athlete to win five medals in a single Olympics and the first with six overall.
Her career total surpasses that of runner Phil Edwards and speed skater Marc Gagnon, who won five apiece over three Olympics.
Klassen eclipsed the career mark over two Olympics and, only 27 years old, could add to her haul at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.
Looks like the Own the Podium program is working. $110 million spent on equipment technology and athletic training to increase the Canadian medal count from the 17 at the last Winter Olympics to 25 at this one to 40 at Vancouver, 2010.
We're @ 23 so far, and would be further still of the Men's hockey team played as a team.
Ah well. We're tied with the US for medal count, at least for the moment, which is pretty durned good for a country 1/10th their size.
Clara Hughes, eh?
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