Team Pursuit (6 laps), Women

Since the Sochi Olympics, two teams had dominated the women’s team pursuit: Netherlands (the defending Olympic champion) and Japan. The two nations had placed 1-2 in all of the three intervening World Championships, with Japan winning once and Netherlands twice. In the World Cup, Japan won twice, and Netherlands once. In the 2018 season, all three World Cup races had been won by the Japanese ladies. While the Dutch only raced with their A-team on one occasion, the Japanese went all out and lowered the world record on each of these three occasions, improving it by a total of 5 seconds.

The quarterfinals confirmed expectations, with Netherlands setting the fastest time (a new Olympic record), closely followed by Japan. The other nations were at least 3 seconds slower, with the North American teams of Canada and the US making the cut. The host nation, Korea, placed seventh, but their performance gained lots of attention. One of the skaters, No Seon-Yeong was unable to follow the pace and fell back. In the post-race press conference, the other two skaters, who hadn’t noticed No falling behind, blamed her (and other external factors) for the team’s failure. The Korean public didn’t accept this “bullying” of No, who had hoped to win a medal in Pyeongchang in honor of her deceased brother No Jin-Gyu, a former short track world champion. A petition was set up for the South Korean government to remove Kim Bo-Reum and Park Ji-Wu from the team. The petition received half a million signatures, well above the limit that warrants an official response. After an apology, all three skaters appeared on the ice again in the consolation round.

In the semi-finals, the Americans didn’t even try to beat the Dutch, instead opting to save energy for the bronze medal race. Japan also had an easy semi, setting up the expected final. The concluding race was a close affair, with the teams switching leads. In the final laps, the Japanese pulled away to win the event for the first time. The level of competition was high: Japan recorded the second fastest time ever, and the Dutch recorded a national record, slightly below what had been the world record until the beginning of the season. In the bronze medal match, the Americans saw their semi-final strategy prove fruitful. Short-distance specialists Brittany Bowe and Heather Bergsma both faded towards the end of their race, but they had gained sufficient advantage to hold on to the bronze.