Manabu Horii ended a three-year drought on the speedskating World Cup circuit Saturday when he won the men's 500 meters for his 22nd career victory.
Nagano Olympic champion Hiroyasu Shimizu, silver medalist at the World Sprint Championships in Germany last weekend, finished third in the 500, while compatriot Toyoki Takeda took second in the men's 1,000 on the opening day of the Helsinki leg.
Horii crossed the line with a time of 36.77 seconds to edge Poland's Tomasz Swist by just 0.03 seconds in snowy and gusty conditions on an outdoor rink before Shimizu tied with Canada's Jeremy Wotherspoon for third place in 36.86.
"I was lucky. I consider myself a challenger and I tried to keep a positive mindset and overcome bad weather like this," said Horii. The veteran Japanese sprinter's last World Cup victory came in November 1997, three months before the Nagano Olympics.
The 500-meter bronze medalist at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics failed to live up to the high expectations in Nagano. He finished the Games on home soil empty-handed while rival sprinter Shimizu grabbed the spotlight with his gold in the 500 and bronze in the 1,000.
In the men's 1,000, Aadne Sondral of Norway edged Takeda by 0.02 of a second as he skated to his third successive win in that distance in 1:13.62. South Korea's Choi Jae Bong followed in third in 1:13.70.
In the women's 1,000, Aki Tonoike clocked 1:23.12 to finish second, 1.55 behind winner Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt of Germany.