Esmee Visser Wins 5000m Speedskating Gold Medal at 2018 Winter Olympics

Esmee Visser continued the Dutch dominance in the speedskating events at Pyeongchang 2018 as she triumphed in the women's 5,000-metres at the Gangneung Oval on Friday.

The 22-year-old came home in six minutes, 50.23 seconds to seal a sixth gold for the Netherlands in seven speedskating events at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

The well-fancied Martina Sablikova of Czech Republic took silver, missing out on gold by 1.62 seconds.

Meanwhile, 23-year-old Russian skater Natalya Voronina took the bronze medal with a time of 6:53.98.

The full result is available at Pyeongchang2018.com. The latest medal table can be seen below:

Annouk van der Weijden, 31, set a decent benchmark of 6:54.17 in the first pairing, managing to maintain a consistent speed throughout most of her run after a fast start.

No other competitor could touch her until her compatriot Visser went off in the fourth pairing. Despite not making as smooth a start, 11 straight laps in the 32-second margin saw her move into the lead having taken almost four seconds out of Van der Weijden.

In the fifth pairing, 45-year-old Claudia Pechstein went in search of a 10th Olympic medal, 26 years on from winning her first.

In a wide-open field, the German had been tipped for glory ahead of the event, but she blew up midway through her run on Friday, unable to maintain her pace, and eventually had to settle for sixth.

Her opponent, Ivanie Blondin of Canada, did enough to place third and stay in touch to potentially win a medal.

It left just the final duo of Voronina and Sablikova, the latter a two-time former Olympic champion at 5,000-metres, as a threat to Visser's gold.

Neither could find the pace to top the leaderboard, but both did seal a podium spot as they crossed the line barely two seconds apart.