Carlijn Achtereekte produced the best race of her life to seize the Olympic title and lead a Dutch podium sweep in the women’s 3,000-metre speed skating on Saturday. The 28-year-old skated in the fifth of 12 heats, well before the favourites, but her dazzling effort of 3:59.21 held up to win.

“A gold medal – it’s an incredible feeling. I cannot believe it,” Achtereekte said. “I feel so good.

“I thought I had to skate the best race of my life and I did it and I won – that’s incredible.”

Ireen Wust, the 2006 and 2014 champion, was 0.08sec behind to take silver, with Dutch Olympic trials winner Antoinette de Jong third in 4:00.02.

Achtereekte was third at the Dutch Olympic trials and second in last month’s European championships in 4:06.81, but became a shock winner when it mattered most.

“It was almost perfect,” Achtereekte said of her race. “It was so good a race. I skated so good.”

Wust was on pace for gold until her final lap at Gangneung Oval, faltering just enough at the finish to squander the title.

“I’m feeling OK, a little disappointed,” Wust said. “It was not good. I was on schedule for the gold but the last lap was too hard and I didn’t make it.”

Wust missed out on becoming the first Dutch woman to defend a Winter Olympic title, and only the second woman with back-to-back golds in the event.

Wust took her ninth Olympic speed skating medal, matching the all-time record total of Germany’s Claudia Pechstein and tying the Dutch career record for Olympic medals by equestrian rider Anky Van Grunsven.

But it was another near-miss for Wust, a four-time Olympic champion who also settled for silver in the 1,000m, 1,500m and 5,000m at Sochi in 2014.

“I have to be happy and I will be happy with silver, but I came for gold so it’s a little disappointing. It was a hard one,” Wust said.

Wust would have been the first Dutch athlete to win five Olympic golds in the Winter or Summer Games.

Pechstein, a record nine-time Olympic speedskating medallist who turns 46 later this month, missed her chance to win a medal at a sixth different Winter Olympics, finishing ninth in 4:04.49.

Italy’s Francesca Lollobrigida, the great-niece of famed 1950s actress Gina Lollobrigida, finished 13th in 4:08.58.