500 metres, Women

Japan’s Nao Kodaira was clearly favored to win the women’s 500 m. She had emerged as dominant in the event in the previous season, and had won all 15 World Cup races she had contested since then. In addition, she had won the 2017 World title, and the 2017 World Sprint Championships. The Korean public hoped that Lee Sang-Hwa might be able to challenge her, and win her third Olympic 500 m title after 2010 and 2014. Behind Kodaira and Lee, the field was considered to be quite open, with Vanessa Herzog, Karolína Erbanová and Angelina Golikova featuring in many medal predictions. The 2014 silver medalist, Olga Fatkulina, would have been among these names, but was one of the Russians not invited for the Olympics, due to her being mentioned by the Oswald Commission (despite the fact she was later exonerated by CAS).

By the time Kodaira took to the ice, the leading time (37.53) had been produced by Brittany Bowe, but Kodaira was not impressed by that, and lowered it by almost six tenths of a second to 36.94. This brought down the Olympic Record (previously 37.30) by a massive margin as well. In her slipstream, Erbanová finished in 37.34, also below Bowe’s mark. Lee then mounted a serious attempt at retaining her gold, opening in 10.20 (the fastest of the field), but it was insufficient to beat Kodaira’s mark (37.33), and only barely faster than Erbanová. In the final pair, Herzog launched a last attempt to break into the medal positions, but unsuccessfully. Kodaira’s gold medal was the first in speed skating for a Japanese woman, and only the second total (the first one by Hiroyasu Shimizu). Erbanová was only the second Czech speed skater to medal in the Olympics, after Martina Sáblíková.