Martina Sáblíková

Career

As a junior, Sáblíková already achieved some notable results during international tournaments. In 2005, she came seventh in the 5000 m during the World Single Distance Championships. On 18 November 2005, she skated the 3000 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 3000 m and winning the 5000 m. At the 5000 meter she surprisingly beat favorite Claudia Pechstein.

At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, she finished fourth in the 5000 m, behind Clara Hughes, Claudia Pechstein and Cindy Klassen. During her race against Klassen she was more than three 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 10000 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 3000 m and the 5000 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 3000 and 5000 m distances. 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 3000 m and 5000 m. She also beat here the 5000 m world record and set it for 6:45.61, 1.3 seconds faster than the previous record of Claudia Pechstein.

On 15 March 2007, Sáblíková became the first female speedskater to skate a 10000 m below 14 minutes when she did 13:48.33 in Calgary. She improved her own one-year-old world record by almost 20 seconds and this unbelievable result belonged to top 100 men all time. In December 2007, she took the 18th place in the poll European Sportsperson of the Year of the Polish Press Agency. She also won the title of the Sportsperson of the Year of the Czech Republic twice – in 2007 and 2009.

One week before the start of the 2007–08 World Cup season, Sáblíková fell during her training, and fractured her humerus and stretched ligaments. 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 3000 m and 5000 m distances. She also finished 9th at the 1500 m.

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 distance, 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 3000 m and 5000 m distances. On 10 February she finished 5th at the World Allround Championships in Heerenveen, again winning the 5000 m, but with a poor 500 m result.

On 9 March 2008 she won gold at the 5000 m at the World Single Distance Championships in Nagano, Japan. However, she was very disappointed with her 3000 m performance two days before, when she finished 4th.

On 11 January 2009 she repeated her previous bronze performance at the European allround championships despite her traditionally weak performance at the 500 m and surprising 4th place at the 3000 m. However, on 8 February she took gold at the World allround championships in Hamar after setting new Czech national record at the 500 m at 40.28 seconds and winning the 3000 m and 5000 m distances. It was the first world alround medal in her career. On 1 February 2009, Sáblíková and her fellow Czech competitors Andrea Jirků and Karolína Erbanová won the team pursuit competition at the World Cup Final in Erfurt, setting new Czech national record for 3:05.32. After the leading Dutch team did not finish the race, they also won the whole 2008/2009 World Cup.

At the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver (2010), Sáblíková won three medals, two golds (3000 and 5000 metres) and one bronze (1500 metres). She thus became the first Czech to win two gold medals in the same Winter Olympic Games.

At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Sáblíková successfully defended her title in the 5000 meter, while also winning a silver medal in the 3000 meter.

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 5000 m and 10000 m events (both from March 2007), while Milan shared the junior world record for the team pursuit with fellow Czech junior skaters Pavel Kulma and Zdeněk Haselberger (from November 2007 till March 2010). Sáblíková's successes are even more surprising given that there is no speed skating stadium in the Czech Republic. Because of this, Sáblíková's coach Petr Novák had to devise several unorthodox but successful training methods.

Rio 2016 qualification controversy

As an international calibre cyclist, Sáblíková has long harboured the dream of competing in the Olympic time trial event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. After finishing 12th in 2015 in the women's time trial at the UCI World Road Championships in Richmond, U.S. (9th in the reduced rankings) Sáblíková was thought to have secured a place at Rio 2016. However, when the UCI published the list of nations that had qualified for this event at Rio 2016, the Czech Republic was not among them. The UCI used an interpretation of the qualification rules where an athlete also has to qualify for the road race. She decided to travel to Rio in the hope that the decision might be overturned. The UCI interpretation is being challenged, but Sáblíková must await a final decision from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) before knowing whether she will be allowed to represent the Czech Republic in the Women's Time Trial in Rio.

Records

*=not an official distance for women, so no official World record Source: SpeedskatingResults.com

World records

Source: SpeedSkatingStats.com

In-line skating and cycling

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 distance 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. In 2007, she also took bronze in individual time trial on the 24 km distance at the European U23-Junior Road Cycling Championships in Sofia and another bronze on the 18 km distance at the Czech Road Cycling Championships in Žďár nad Sázavou. In 2010 she took gold at the Czech Road and Time Trial National Championship.