Jeremy Wotherspoon is the leader midway through the world sprint speedskating championship in Hamar, Norway.

The native of Red Deer, Alta., set the track record at the Olympic Hall on Friday, clocking 34.55 seconds in the 500-metre race to defeat Keiichiro Nagashima of Japan by 0.19 seconds.

Jeremy Wotherspoon set the track record Friday at Olympic Hall in Hamar, Norway, by clocking 34.55 seconds in the men's 500-metre race.
(Bas Czerwinski/Associated Press)

"Overall it was pretty good," said Wotherspoon, coming off a second-place finish at the world sprint championships last weekend. "I wanted to enter my turns a lot better than I did at the worlds and follow through on my pushes. I did all that better today than last weekend.

"But after the race, I was immediately thinking about things I can do better for the next race."

Pekka Koskela of Finland was third, 0.22 seconds back.

Vincent Labrie of St-Romuald, Que., was 13th while Denny Morrison of Fort St. John, B.C., finished 16th.

In the women's 1,500, Ireen Wust led the Netherlands to a 1-2 finish in a time of 1:54.65 with Paulien van Deutekom second in 1:56.84. World Cup leader Christine Nesbitt took the bronze in 1:57.14, just ahead of Ottawa's Kristina Groves in fourth and Winnipeg's Shannon Rempel in fifth.

"I hadn't skated a World Cup in over a month so I'm very happy with the medal," said Nesbitt. "However, I wasn't totally pleased with how I raced today. My finish was strong but I didn't have a lot of speed at the start. You need that good start in the 1,500 if you want to win."

Germany's Jenny Wolf won the women's 500 in 37.52 seconds, a scant 0.55 seconds ahead of Lee Sang-hwa of South Korea.

Marianne Timmer of the Netherlands finished third in 38.23.

The 500-metre sprints will be decided on Saturday.

With files from the Associated Press