ASTANA, Kazakhstan -- Christine Nesbitt earned a gold medal on Saturday in the womens 1,500-metre race at a speedskating World Cup. Ross Cockrell Jersey . The London, Ont., native finished in one minute 56.10 seconds, 0.67 seconds ahead of Germanys Claudia Pechstein. Ireen Wust of the Netherlands won bronze (1:57.00). Winnipegs Cindy Klassen was fifth (1:57.42). Also, Germanys Jenny Wolf won the womens 500 metre race in 37.984 seconds. South Koreas Lee Sang-hwa took silver (37.985) and Japans Nao Kodaira placed third (37.99). Nesbitt finished eighth in the 500 with a time of 38.47 seconds. "It (my 500-metre race today) made me confident for the 1,500," said Nesbitt. "Because I talked to my coaches, to Xiuli (Wang) and Mark (Wild) before, that I wanted to start really hard and just experiment and see what I can do when I start fast. "I knew I had good speed and it was coming pretty easily." In mens competition, Jan Smeekens of the Netherlands won gold in the 500 metres (35.05). Mo Tae-bum of South Korea was second (35.06) and American Tucker Fredricks won bronze (35.19). Calgarys Gilmore Junio was sixth (35.238) in the 500. Also, Sven Kramer of the Netherlands won the 5,000 metres with a time of 6:13.83. Fellow Dutchman Jorrit Bergsma earned silver (6:15.40) and Frances Alexis Contin was third (6:17.43). Sammy Watkins Jersey For Sale . -- Marcus Thornton and the Sacramento Kings had little trouble surging past the Boston Celtics in the second half on Friday. Kiko Alonso Jersey . Hillis said Monday he has no regrets about sitting out Clevelands game Sept. 25 against Miami with strep throat, a decision -- reached with advice from his agent -- that fuelled speculation he missed the game to protest not getting a contract extension from the Browns.Former Toronto Raptors president and general manager Bryan Colangelo addressed his tanking comments made at the MIT Sports Analytics Conference in Toronto on Friday and admitted it was merely a poor choice of words. Speaking on TSN Radio 1050s TSN Drive with Dave Naylor on Monday, Colangelo said he had no intention of tanking the shortened 2011-12 season, but definitely wanted a high pick in the draft. "I wish that word wasnt used for headline reasons," said Colangelo, "but the story behind it was: how can we fix the system? How can we tweak the system to make it less likely that teams are rewarded for losing records? "I do believe that if youre as transparent as we were at the time - with our season seat holders, our fans, the market place and the media - everybody knew what the plan was and what we were going through. It didnt make it easy to lose games but there was anticipation that games would be lost. With that comes curtain rewards and in the system that we currently play under, the team with the worst record gets the greatest odds and a non-playoff team is in a lottery that can ultimately lead to them getting top-notch talent coming to their team." Colangelo said the team was happy getting Terrence Ross in the first round (8th overall) of the 2012 draft and would never tell a coach to lose games since it can only have negative long-term effects. "Coach was doing such a fabulous job with the group that there certainly was no intentional losing going on because we won far too many games than anyone anticipated and it put us in a position to still get a nice draft pick in Terrance Ross," said Colangelo. "But it certainly decreased our odds of getting the top choice, which was a franchise centre in Anthony Davis." Colangelo talked about when the team faced heavy scrutiny when they picked Jonas Valanciunas, who was selected in the first round (5th overall) in 2011. "We got booed off the stage when the announcement was made but that was the right pick for this organization. Kiko Alonso Kids Jersey. It was not an easy one to make knowing that Jonas would not be made available for at least a year and maybe more if the buyout hadnt been successfully negotiated. We knew it was going to be a tough scenario going into a new year without the inclusion of a top draft pick but the following season we also knew that not only would Jonas be coming but another fairly high-value draft selection - unknown at the time - would be helping us as well. Not to mention we would have cap space and greater developed players at that point." The Raptors finished the 2011-12 season with a 23-43 record, good for 11th in the Eastern Conference, 12 games behind the Philadelphia 76ers for the final playoff spot in the East, and the eighth-worst record in the NBA. The team neither rose nor fell in the lottery, receiving the eighth-overall pick in the 2012 draft where they selected Ross out of the University of Washington. The 2007 NBA Executive of the Year (with the Phoenix Suns) was speaking at the MIT Sports Analytics Conference on a proposal currently in front of the NBA Board of Governors which would see the draft lottery and any incentive to bottom out eliminated. "Admittedly, I will say, I tried to tank a couple years ago," said Colangelo to the conference. "And I didnt come out and say, Coach (Dwane Casey), youve got to lose games. I never said that. I wanted to have him establish a winning tradition and a culture and all of that, but I wanted to do it in the framework of playing and developing young players, and with that comes losing. Theres just no way to avoid that, but I never once said, Youve got to lose this game." Colangelo was relieved of his general manager position last May in favour of Masai Ujiri and eventually resigned his post as Raptors president the following month. ' ' '
