Nesbitt continues to dominate

Christine Nesbitt continued her stellar speedskating season on Sunday, claiming her fourth gold medal of the Canadian long-track championships at the Olympic Oval in Calgary.

The London, Ont., skater won gold in the women’s 500 metres, adding to her wins in the 1,000, 1,500 and 3,000 metres.

Nesbitt, who won last year’s 500-metre title, posted a two-race time of one minute 15.88 seconds to finish ahead of Anastasia Bucsis (1:16.70) of Calgary and Danielle Wotherspoon (1:17.57) of Red Deer.

“Those were good races,” Nesbitt said.

“They’re the two fastest races I’ve skated this year, and only the third and fourth time I’ve ever skated under 38 seconds. So I’m pretty happy with that. I feel like there’s still room for improvement.”

Jamie Gregg of Edmonton successfully defended his men’s 500-metre title, posting a time of 1:09.50. Muncef Ouardi of Montreal was 0.32 seconds behind Gregg, while Alex Boisvert-Lacroix of Sherbrooke, Que., was third in 1:10.09.

“I was happy with my races,” said Gregg, who also won the men’s 1,000 metres.

“They were two solid races. In the first one I put up a good time, and so the second (race) I tried a little bit too hard to go even faster and it ended up being slower. But I think I learned from it.”

In other action Sunday, Tori Spence of Kamloops, B.C., and Winnipeg’s Tyler Derraugh won the inaugural first-ever mass start event in championships history.

Spence claimed the women’s mass start gold medal, covering 15 laps of the oval in 8:57.07. Derraugh won the 20-lap men’s mass start in 10:32.33.