Winter Sports Roundup : Olympian Flaim Wins World Speedskate Overall Title

Eric Flaim of Pembroke, Mass., a silver medalist in the Winter Olympics, won the world men’s speed skating championships overall title Sunday at Alma Ata in the Soviet Union, after finishing fourth in a 10,000-meter race that was won by Dutch skater Leo Visser.

Dave Silk, also of the United States, won the 1,500-meter race in 1:53.66, but fell and finished 11th in the 10000,000 meters. Silk was third overall behind Visser, who won the 10,000 meters in 14:21.70.

Flaim’s time of 14:55.61 earned him the best overall score for the tournament of 162.849 points. Visser finished with 163.751 points and Silk had 163.926.

Flaim was second in the 500-meter race at 37.14 seconds and second in the 1,500 at 1:53.92

Dan Jansen of West Allis, Wis., won one race and was runner-up in three others and tops the World Cup point standings after a two-day speed skating sprint meet at Savalen, Norway.

Jansen tops the 500-meter standings with 177 points, followed by Olympic champion Jens-Uwe Mey of East Germany with 175.

Jansen leads the 1,000 meters standings with 102 points, two points ahead of Ykema and four ahead of American Nick Thometz.

Ykema won the 500 meters race Sunday in 37.86, followed by Jansen in 37.91 and Thometz at 37.97.

Thometz won Sunday’s 1,000-meter race in 1 minute 17.49 seconds, followed by Jansen in 1:17.74.

Austrian veteran Roswitha Steiner, in the final race of her nine-year career, won the last World Cup women’s slalom of the season and wrapped up the slalom title as well at Aspen, Colo.

Steiner, 24, who retires with eight World Cup victories and two slalom wins, beat Switzerland’s Corinne Schmidhauser in a treacherous race that saw most of the other favorites fall in the first run.

Steiner finished with an aggregate time of 1 minute 16.42 seconds. Schmidhauser was runner-up at 1:16.88 and Austria’s Anita Wachter placed third in 1:17.05.

Steiner’s victory was worth 25 points and vaulted her from fifth in the slalom standings to first with 87 points. Schmidhauser earned 20 points and wound up with 86.

World Cup officials canceled the men’s downhill race at Whistler Mountain, Canada, because of adverse weather conditions.

World Cup officials made no immediate decision as to where and when the race, also called off on Friday, will be rescheduled.