Last month, the Winter Youth Olympic Games took place in Gangwon Province, South Korea, and only now did we learn about one of the greatest moments in speed skating history.
When China’s Yang Jinglu was competing in the women’s short track 1500m final, she turned the entire sport upside down.
To understand what happened, you need to know something about 1500 meter speed skating pace. No one is going to sprint at full speed every race, so as with most distance events, it’s important to manage the pack and sprint on his last six laps of the race.
After the gun goes off and everything seems methodical and normal, Yang decides to blow everyone away at full speed. Her group backed away, unwilling to follow her, as she quickly took her outside. Now, we’ve seen skaters giving their all before, but usually they burn out and gas before the race gets exciting.
Instead, Jan opted to let everyone go around and then return to the pack at the back to match their slow pace. Call it the pressure of the moment, the typical disorganization of the sport, or just a brain fart. However, the rest of the field seemed to have completely forgotten that Yang had orbited them. To further confuse things, officials announced the rest of the laps based on the lead skater, Yan, rather than the pack.
So when they announced “3 laps to go” everyone except Yan had 4 laps to go. When they announced “Final Lap,” it only applied to Yan. Staying at the back in 1st place not only meant she won when everyone thought it was over, but teammate Li Jingji knew Yang was one lap ahead. Because of this, she easily overtook the group. their He took home the silver medal on the final lap.
This is one of the most ball-heavy moves a speed skater has ever pulled off, and it’s incredible that it was pulled off.
