CALGARY - Thanks to Cindy Klassen, national records, not to mention world records, are pretty hard to come by for Canada's female long-track speedskaters.

So Christine Nesbitt, Kristina Groves and Brittany Schussler had good reason to feel excited Sunday after combining to skate the fastest women's team pursuit ever, a performance that put an exclamation mark on the national team's eight-medal performance during their home World Cup.

Not only did the trio finally improve on a mark they've had their sights on since last spring, they also managed to get their names alongside the country's most decorated Olympian in the record books. It's the first career world mark for all three.

"In case you hadn't noticed, the world records from this other girl in Canada are pretty fast,'' quipped Groves.

"We can't even have national records,'' chimed in Nesbitt.

"Or track records,'' added Schussler.

Klassen may hold three world and four Canadian records, but at least one is all theirs. The trio's time of two minutes 55.79 seconds shaved nearly three-tenths of a second off the previous mark of 2:56.04 established by Germany's Daniela Anschutz Thoms, Annie Friesinger-Postma and Claudia Pechstein in 2005 on the same ice at the Calgary Olympic Oval.

Nesbitt, from London, Ont., Groves, from Ottawa, and Schussler, from Winnipeg, also won team pursuit gold at the world championships in Richmond, B.C., last spring and figure they can go even faster than they did Sunday.

"It's something we all knew we could do and it was just a matter of putting the race together and doing it,'' said Nesbitt. "We know we didn't have a perfect race even in that, so it's really cool.''

That last part is classic Nesbitt, who always finds something to improve on no matter how well she skates. She also won gold in the women's 1,000 Sunday with the second-fastest time of her career, yet wasn't totally satisfied with her day.

"No,'' she laughed. "The 1,000, a good opener and good last lap, but I'm a bit critical of my first lap, it could have been a bit faster. ...

"It's a nice feeling to be critical. I don't want to look at today's race and be, 'Wow, I just skated my best race ever.' It's December and the Olympics are in three months. You have to know the things you're doing well and the things you're not doing well so you can improve.''

That feeling permeates through the entire team.

Denny Morrison of Fort St. John, B.C., teamed with Lucas Makowsky of Regina and Mathieu Giroux of Pointe-aux-Trembles, Que., to win silver in the men's team pursuit and added a bronze in the 1,000 Sunday, and feels he's yet to hit his stride, too.

All of which bodes well after a weekend in which Groves also won Saturday's 1,500 to give Canada three gold medals at the event, Nesbitt added silver in that same race to make it two-second place finishes, while Morrison (1,500) and Jamie Gregg (500) each claimed bronze Friday for three thirds overall.

With every international skater of note in attendance, it was a virtuoso showing.

"I think that's been the whole Canadian plan from the start,'' said Morrison. "You look at people like Kristina Groves and myself, we started off a little bit slow, a little in the shadows. And as we get closer to the Games we're going to get better, better and better.

"The women's team pursuit coming up with a record shows what they're capable of and it's only going to get stronger.''

The Canadians were four seconds ahead of Japan's 2:59.79 in the women's pursuit while Germany took the bronze in 3:00.25.

Nesbitt skated 1:14.03 to win the 1,000 decisively over Annette Gerritsen of the Netherlands, who grabbed silver at 1:14.48. Monique Angermueller of Germany won bronze in 1:14.68 while Groves ended up fourth in 1:14.83.

Morrison picked up his second bronze of the event shortly after, clocking 1:07.77. Shani Davis of the U.S. won the 1,000 in a track record time of 1:06.91, well ahead of South Korea's Lee Kyou-Hyuk at 1:07.61.

"I was OK with it,'' Morrison said of his 1,000. "I'm missing a little bit of snap.''

Morrison, Makowsky and Giroux, in their first season together as a team, finished the men's pursuit in 3:39.17, a personal best for the trio. They were bumped out of gold by the Dutch team, which posted a 3:38.05 in the final pairing. Norway was third in 3:41.59.

"We skated really well together,'' said Makowsky. "That was pretty well the focus on what we wanted to accomplish today and we just showed when we are able to do that we can be up on the podium.''

Added Giroux: "We're doing an awesome job.''

Earlier, Jeremy Wotherspoon of Red Deer, Alta., finished second in the men's B group 1,000 with a time of 1:08.22. It was a strong follow-up to his season World Cup debut Saturday, when he posted the seventh-fastest time overall in the men's 500.

They were his first races since breaking his left arm in six spots during last year's season-opening World Cup in Berlin and provided him with strong building blocks heading into next week's World Cup in Salt Lake City.

"I was really happy with the acceleration at the start, got some good early speed and pretty easy speed,'' said Wotherspoon. "I'm still not quite used to that speed, I came out of the second turn pretty wide, I didn't lose speed but just went extra distance, other than that I was happy to get that in. It was good practice on the new equipment at a high speed.

"That's the best training.''

Wotherspoon, who will race in the A group 1,000 next weekend and perhaps in the 500 again, will need to now ratchet things up a bit according to national sprint group coach Mike Crowe.

"Now we're just trying to get him a little bit more aggressive,'' he said. "I feel he hasn't necessarily been in race mode yet, so getting him out there racing, being aggressive, knowing that everything is going to be in place for that.''