Irene Schouten set Olympic records to win her second successive gold in Beijing ©Getty Images

Irene Schouten of the Netherlands took women’s 5,000 metres gold in the speed skating in an Olympic record time of 6min 43.51sec.

The silver medal went to Isabelle Weidemann of Canada in 6:48.18.

Bronze went to Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014 gold medallist Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic in 6:50.09.

It was her second gold of these Games after success over 3,000m and a second successive Olympic record.

Schouten was the last to skate but she looked impressive and was ahead of the pace throughout to shatter German Claudia Pechstein’s existing Olympic record which had stood for almost 20 years.

It was also a Dutch national record for the distance.

"You work really hard and to be able to pull it off at the right moment is just amazing," Schouten said.

"These two Olympic gold medals are great and this is something no-one will ever take away from me.

"On the 3,000m there was a lot of pressure and on the 5,000m I was more like, 'I have the Olympic gold, now I can just skate fast'" she said.

Silver medallist Weidemann said: "Schouten is incredible, I wanted to cheer for her.

"She takes the level up so much, I hope in the future that I can push her time and push the event even more.

"The faster more women can go, the better and watching her skate has given me a fire for sure for the summer."