Wild short track speedskating crash wipes out most of the field
Some crashes in a race on a short track happen in fire.
Other crashes happen on ice.
And we got both over the weekend.
Besides the drag racing story linked above, the Winter Olympics women’s 500-meter short track speedskating event provided the frozen Newton’s Third Law equal and opposite reaction.
A hockey rink, on which short track speedskating events are held, provides a 111.11 meter (or 364.54 feet for the non-metric-inclined) lap. When you put four people taking tight turns on a track that short, crashes are inevitable, and winning is often a simple matter of being in front of the wipeout.
The final results of the heat show Choi Minjeong of Korea winning the heat in 42.87 seconds, setting an Olympic record in the process.
Behind Minjeong, Petra Jaszapati of Hungary finished second and qualified for the next round despite a 55.641-second time that was nearly 12 full seconds slower than any other qualifier and the 29th-fastest of 31 times posted in the eight heats.
Emina Malagich of Russia finished third in the heat at 56.808 seconds.
Meanwhile, not everyone got out of things in one piece; Charlotte Gilmartin of Great Britain was unable to complete the race, injured in the crash.
As far as the culprit for the crash goes, Malagich cut recklessly to the inside of the turn heading into the corner, wiped out Gilmartin, and something clipped into Jaszapati that wasn’t immediately evident and took her out as well.
Jaszapati jumped out to the early lead before falling back into the pack and getting caught in the crash; considering that Minjeong broke an Olympic record in the heat, perhaps second place bodes well for future heats and medal contention if the Hungarian can continue to launch out to such great starts.
Short track speedskating is a sport world-famous for wild crashes. Consider this, from 2008 in Salt Lake City at the World Cup short track event:
Or this event from 2009, where fans could be forgiven for wondering if the skaters were drunk:
Or Steven Bradbury winning the most unlikely gold medal in Winter Olympics history for Australia, as he was so desperately far behind that he had enough time to react like a car driving a safe distance behind a wreck and emerging unscathed:
Short track is the most fun event in its sport, precisely because it’s the least predictable. This was just the preliminary round.
Don’t touch that dial, folks. There’s a lot more where this came from.
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