Katherine Reutter sets Olympic record in women’s short-track speedskating
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U.S. short-track speedskater Katherine Reutter set an Olympic record while winning her heat in the women’s 1,000-meter event at the Vancouver Winter Olympics on Wednesday.
Skating in the fifth heat, Reutter finished in 1 minute 30.508 seconds, breaking the record of 1:31.235 set by Yang Yang of China at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
The quarterfinals will be held Friday at 6:14 p.m. PST, followed by the semifinals at 6:52 p.m. and the finals at 7:24 p.m.
The United States’ two other competitors did not qualify for the quarterfinals. Allison Baver was disqualified in the first heat race while Kimberly Derrick placed third in heat No. 7 with a time of 1:31.663.
“I’m not really sure what happened to Allison, some kind of bumping and there was a DQ. I’m really sorry to hear that because I think we have one of the deepest teams the U.S. has ever had,’ Reutter said. ‘Honestly, I don’t want to blame it on luck but it does seem like little things keep coming up and happening to one person or another, things that we don’t entirely have control of. Which is the worst part of this sport, sometimes you don’t have control and that’s the worst thing.”
-- Houston Mitchell in Vancouver, Canada