Canada finished one, two in the women's 1500-metres on Saturday at a long track speed skating world cup event in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Christine Nesbitt of London, Ont., won gold in a time of 1:52.76. Ottawa's Kristina Groves won silver at 1:53.32.

It's a back-to-back world cup gold medal win for Nesbitt, who won the 1,000m a week earlier in Calgary.

"Last week, I did well, and posted a decent time, but never went for it,'' Nesbitt said on a conference call. "Today, I was just trying not to be afraid of the race and know that I'm going to hurt no matter what, and that's what I did.

"I'm really happy with how I approached the race. Everything made a step forward. I'm really confident in my 1,000, but that extra distance really gets to me.''

Groves' silver comes a day after she won bronze in the 3000m event.

Fellow Canadians Britanny Schussler and Cindy Klassen finished 7th and 13th, respectively.

Schussler finished in a time of 1:54.86. Klassen, a six-time Olympic medallist who missed last season to undergo surgery on both knees, finished in 1:56.10, 3.34 seconds back of Nesbitt.

Earlier Saturday, Edmonton's Jamie Gregg narrowly missed out on his second straight podium finish.

Gregg finished fourth, clocking a time of 34.36, just shy of American Tucker Fredricks, who won bronze in 34.35.

"It was a good race,'' said Gregg. "My second corner, I felt like I was really low, but I somehow held on and had a fast time so that was good.

"I think I'm doing (personal bests) almost every race, so I have to be happy with that.''

Making his return to the world cup circuit 'A' division at 500m was world record holder Jeremy Wotherspoon. Wotherspoon of Red Deer, Alta skated in the A race but had issues with the clap mechanism in his skate and finished 20th of 21 skaters in 45.95 seconds.

Fellow Canadians Mike Ireland and Kyle Parrott finished 12th and 13th, respectively. 

Korea won gold and silver, with Kyou-Hyuk Lee taking first in a time of 34.26, and Kang-Seok Lee finishing second at 34.28.

On the women's side in the 500m, Nesbitt clocked a time of 38.17 to finish 14th overall, 1.15 seconds back of the winner.

China's Beixing Wang, a three-time world champion silver medallist at the distance, took gold in 37.02, edging rival Jenny Wolf of Germany.

The reigning world champion, Wolf broke her own world record on Friday when she clocked 37.00 to win gold. On Saturday, Wolf finished 0.15 back of Wang to win silver.

While Lee Sang-Hwa of Korea won bronze (37.24).

Enrico Fabris of Italy won the men's 5,000 in 6:06.06, beating Bob de Jong of the Netherlands, who clocked 6:08.76, by more than two seconds.

Ivan Skobrev of Russia took third in 6:10.58. Mathieu Giroux of Pointe-aux-Trembles, Que., was 18th in 6:24.51 while Lucas Makowsky of Regina, who fell during his race, was 20th in 6:29.18.

With the Christmas break approaching, Nesbitt welcomes the down time.

"I'm excited to take a break,'' said Nesbitt. `"We've been racing for six weeks, and it's hard on your body.''

-With files from The Canadian Press