The women's 500 metres
speed skating
Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors racing, race each other in travelling a certain distance on Ice skate, skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marath ...
competition of the
2018 Winter Olympics
, nations = 93
, athletes = 2,922 (1,680 men and 1,242 women)
, events = 102 in 7 sports (15 disciplines)
, opening =
, closing =
, opened_by = President Moon Jae-in
, cauldron = Kim Yun-a
, stadium = Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium
, winte ...
was held on 18 February 2018 at
Gangneung Oval
The Gangneung Oval (Korean: 강릉 스피드 스케이팅 경기장) is a speed skating oval in South Korea, which was used for the speed skating competitions at the 2018 Winter Olympics. The building of the oval was started in September 2013. Th ...
in
Gangneung
Gangneung () is a municipal city in the province of Gangwon-do, on the east coast of South Korea. It has a population of 213,658 (as of 2017).Gangneung City (2003)Population & Households. Retrieved January 14, 2006. Gangneung is the economic ...
.
Summary
Pre-race favourites were
Nao Kodaira
Nao Kodaira ( ja, 小平 奈緒; born 26 May 1986) is a Japanese former long track speed skater who specialised in the sprint distances.
She is the 2018 Olympic champion in the 500 m distance. Kodaira is the first Japanese woman to win an Oly ...
, winner of every single pre-Olympic ISU World Cup 500m in the 2017/18 season, and
Lee Sang-hwa
Lee Sang-hwa (Korean: 이상화, Hanja: 李相花, ; born 25 February 1989) is a South Korean retired speed skater who specialises in the sprint distances. She is a two-time Olympic champion in 500 metres (2010 and 2014) and the 2010 World Sp ...
, world record holder at this distance and two-time Olympic 500m gold medallist.
Skating in the fourth pair,
Jorien Ter Mors
Jorien ter Mors (; born 21 December 1989) is a retired Dutch speed skater on both short track and long track. She was the Olympic champion in the 1500 metres and team pursuit (long track) at the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 1000 metres at the ...
posted a time of 37.53, which stood until
Brittany Bowe
Brittany Starr Bowe (born February 24, 1988) is an American speed skater and former inline skater and basketball player. She has eight gold, one silver, and two bronze medals from the world inline speedskating championships. From her junior years, ...
improved it by 0.009 seconds in the eleventh pair. Starting in pair 16 versus
Karolína Erbanová
Karolína Erbanová (; born 27 October 1992) is a Czech ice hockey player and retired long-track speed skater. She won a bronze medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in the 500 m event in speed skating. She is a member of the Czech national ic ...
, Japan's Nao Kodaira raced to an Olympic and sea-level record of 36.94, clocking an unprecedented lap time of 26.68 - a pace for the longest time deemed "impossible" even at altitude (which Gangneung is not). In pair 15, South Korea's Lee Sang-hwa opened faster than Kodaira and was up two tenths in back straight intermediate timings. However, an imperfect final inner turn saw her lose this advantage and cross the line 0.39 seconds down in 37.33 to take second place - a mere 0.01 seconds ahead of Erbanová's time.
Vanessa Herzog
Vanessa Herzog (''née'' Bittner; born 4 July 1995) is an Austrian speed skater. She competed at the 2013 World Sprint Championships in Salt Lake City, and at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi
Sochi ( rus, Со́чи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-С ...
, 500m gold medallist at the
2018 European Speed Skating Championships, was unable to challenge for a medal in the final pair, finishing fourth.
Competition schedule
All times are (UTC+9
UTC+09:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +09:00.
During the Japanese occupations of British Borneo, Burma, Hong Kong, Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Philippines, Singapore, and French Indochina, it was used as a common time with ...
).
Records
Prior to this competition, the existing world, Olympic and track records were as follows.
The following records were set during this competition.
OR = Olympic record, TR = track record, WB = world best
Results
The races were held at 20:56.
Final results
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Speed skating at the 2018 Winter Olympics - Women's 500 metres
Women's speed skating at the 2018 Winter Olympics