1,000 metres, Women

The list of medal potentials for this event was quite long. Defending champion Park Seung-Hui had retired, but her compatriots Choi Min-Jeong and Shim Seok-Hui were worthy successors. They had divided the 2014, 2015 and 2016 world titles between them, and both claimed World Cup wins in the active season. Their main competition was originally expected to come from Britain’s Elise Christie, who had captured the overall world title in 2017, as well as the 1,000 m. However, Christie had crashed out of the 1,500 m semis earlier in the tournament, and it wasn’t sure if she was fit enough to compete. The rest of the contenders included household names like Arianna Fontana and Marianne St-Gelais and 2017-2018 World Cup winner Kim Boutin.

Christie continued her streak of failing to medal at the Olympics, being disqualified in her heat, while St-Gelais bowed out in the quarter-finals. Shim, Choi, Fontana and Boutin qualified for the final, joined by Suzanne Schulting (Netherlands), who had ranked fourth in the World Cup circuit. Boutin headed the final, but was quickly passed by Schulting, who still led the pack at the bell. The Koreans lined up to make their moves from the back, but Shim fell, taking Choi with her. This left Schulting to win, claiming her nation’s first gold medal in the sport. As Boutin and Fontana claimed the remains podium places, this marked the first time since the introduction of the event where neither South Korea nor China won a medal. Through 2014, the two countries had won 16 out of 18 available medals.