U.S. speedskater gets her 43.834 seconds of fame

Reporting from Vancouver, Canada — 

Katherine Reutter was an Olympic-record holder for all of about three minutes.

The Champaign, Ill., native will have to settle for that.

In the first quarterfinal of the women’s 500-meter short-track speedskating event Wednesday night, Reutter blazed around the ice in 43.834 seconds to set a new mark. In the next heat, China’s Wang Meng shattered that time with a 43.284 and then went on to win the gold medal.

Reutter was forced to watch the finals after starting slowly in the semis, never recovering and being eliminated in her bid for her first Olympic medal.

Still, there’s that moment when she was on top of the world.

“It was fantastic,” Reutter said. “Even the first race on Saturday [in heats] I went into it thinking, ‘I want the Olympic record. I was kind of upset I didn’t get it. I was able to kind of redeem myself and get it [Wednesday]. I know Wang Meng was extremely fast. I knew if I set it, it probably wouldn’t stand for long. But I am forever an Olympic-record holder. I’m happy about that.”

In the semis, Reutter finished fourth to end her medal bid and Wang blazed to another record in the second semifinal with a 42.985 mark. Reutter wasn’t terribly disappointed at not medaling because she didn’t start believing she had a chance to reach the podium until last week, when she set a personal best during practice.

“My goal for the 500 was to make it to the finals,” Reutter said. “I didn’t realize until maybe just last Thursday it was possible for me to . . . get a medal. Maybe if I had more time to realize that and prepare I could have done better.

“I had my fastest lap time ever [in practice], I went 8.39,” she added. “I thought for the first time, ‘Holy cow, I may be one of the fastest girls in the world.’ ”

She might be, but a medal didn’t come to fruition as she never really challenged in the semifinal.

“I did what I could,” Reutter said. “While I think could have skated better . . . the way I skated was dead-even with the results I got. I don’t feel like I got cheated.”

On the men’s side, Apolo Anton Ohno and J.R. Celski advanced to the quarterfinals of the 1,000 meters, which will be held Saturday. Ohno, in search of his seventh career medal, which would make him the top medal winner among Americans in Winter Games history, won his heat. Celski finished second in his heat to advance. Also, the U.S. team of Ohno, Celski, Simon Cho and Travis Jayner advanced to the 5,000-meter relay final.

ckuc@tribune.com