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Posts Tagged ‘speed skating’

Beijing 2022: Erin Jackson

Monday, February 21st, 2022
Erin Jackson of USA competing on the 500m during the 2021 ISU World Cup on November 12, 2021 in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland.  Credit: © Orange Pics BV/Alamy Images

Erin Jackson of USA competing on the 500m during the 2021 ISU World Cup on November 12, 2021 in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland.
Credit: © Orange Pics BV/Alamy Images

In February 2022, Erin Jackson became the first Black woman to win a medal in speed skating at the Winter Olympics. She won gold in the 50o-meter race in the long-track speed skating event at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Jackson was the first skater representing the United States to win the 500-meter race since 1994. Jackson also joined Shani Davis as the only two Black athletes to medal in Olympic speed skating.
 
Jackson is an American speed skater. Jackson narrowly missed qualifying for Beijing 2022, earning a bronze in two races at the Olympic team trials. She slipped in the 500-meter, the event for which she was ranked number one in the world. Fellow top-ranking speed skater and friend Brittany Bowe qualified for three events. Bowe stepped down in the 500-meter race to give Jackson her spot, sending Jackson to her second Olympic Games.
 
Jackson became the first Black woman to represent the United States in long-track speed skating at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Long-track races are held on an oval 333 1/3 to 400 meters (264 ½ to 437 yards) around. She became the first Black American woman to win a World Cup title for speed skating in 2021. During the 2021-2022 season, Jackson won gold in four World Cup races. She broke the American record, finishing the 500-meter race in 36.80 seconds, at the Salt Lake City World Cup in 2021.
 
Jackson was a top competitor in in-line speed skating and roller derby. In-line skates, sometimes referred to by the trade name Rollerblade, are roller skates with the wheels aligned in a single row. She transitioned to ice speed skating in 2017 to compete in the Olympics. After only four months of training on ice, she made the U.S. National Team.
 
Erin Jackson was born on Sept. 19, 1992, in Ocala, Florida. Jackson began roller skating and figure skating as a child. She began competing on a figure skating team when she was 8 years old. After two years, her coaches moved away, leading her to switch to in-line speed skating in 2002. Jackson joined Inline Team USA in 2008. She competed in the Junior World Championships and Pan American Games in high school. She won gold in the 500-meter race in the 2014 Pan American Games.
 
While attending college, Jackson joined the roller derby team the Ocala Cannibals in 2012. She transferred to a team in Jacksonville, the New Jax City Rollers, in 2013. She competed with the team in the 2015 Women’s Flat Track Derby Association championship. She graduated from the University of Florida in 2015 with a degree in engineering. Jackson has won many in-line skating world championship medals and dozens of national championships.

 

Tags: 2022 winter olympics, beijing, erin jackson, ice skating, roller derby, speed skating, united states
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Olympic February: Final Results

Tuesday, February 27th, 2018

February 27, 2018

Two days ago on Sunday, February 25, the Winter Olympic Games closed in South Korea after featuring more events than any previous winter games—102 to be exact. Four new events were introduced: a mixed team event for alpine skiing, curling mixed doubles, snowboarding’s big air, and a mass start for speed skating. Norwegians showed the rest of the world their prowess with 39 medals, and they tied Germany for the most gold medals (14). Germany had 31 total medals, Canada was third with 29, and the United States was fourth with 23.

Olympic champion Chloe Kim celebrates victory in the women's snowboard halfpipe final at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Phoenix Snow Park on February 13, 2018 in PyeongChang. Credit: © Leonard Zhukovsky, Shutterstock

U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim celebrates victory in the women’s snowboard halfpipe at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Credit: © Leonard Zhukovsky, Shutterstock

The United States earned unexpected gold medals in women’s hockey, women’s cross-country skiing, and men’s curling. The women earned Team USA’s first Olympic gold medal in hockey in 20 years by beating the dominant Canadian team in a shoot-out. Cross-country skiers Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall became the first American women to ever medal in their discipline, much less to take home the gold in the team sprint freestyle event. The men’s curling team brought the United States its first curling Olympic gold medal.

Alpine skiing had everyone’s attention with U.S. ladies Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn. Shiffrin won a gold in the women’s giant slalom and took home a silver in the women’s combined. Vonn missed the podium on the Super-G but came back for a bronze in the downhill event, making her the oldest woman (at age 33) to medal in alpine skiing at the winter games. Team USA’s Nick Goepper earned a silver in men’s freestyle skiing in the slopestyle event. In an exciting bobsled final run, the two-woman U.S. team Lauren Gibbs and Elana Meyers Taylor finished second for the silver. John Henry Krueger earned his silver in short-track speed-skating in the men’s 1000-meter race, the first individual U.S. speed skating medal in 8 years. U.S. freestyle skier Brita Sigourney brought home bronze in the women’s halfpipe.

The symbol 'ㅍ' represents the first consonant of the first syllable of PyeongChang in the Korean alphabet, Hangeul, and expresses the harmony of Heaven, Earth and Man. 'ㅊ' depicts the first Korean consonant of the second syllable of PyeongChang in Hangeul, and represents snow, ice, and winter sports stars (athletes). Credit: © Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018

The symbol ‘ㅍ’ represents the first consonant of the first syllable of PyeongChang in the Korean alphabet, Hangeul, and expresses the harmony of Heaven, Earth and Man. ‘ㅊ’ depicts the first Korean consonant of the second syllable of PyeongChang in Hangeul, and represents snow, ice, and winter sports stars (athletes). Credit: © Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018

Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjoergen became the most decorated Winter Olympian of all time at Pyeongchang. Ladies figure skating rivals and teammates Alina Zagitova and Yevgenia Medvedeva battled for the gold. Both skaters are Olympic Athletes from Russia. Medvedeva had been undefeated in competition from November 2015 until January 2018. She broke her own world record with two captivating Olympic performances, only to have it broken minutes later by Zagitova. Medvedeva won the silver, and Zagitova took the gold in a scarlet tutu.

Tags: alina zagitova, bobsled, chloe kim, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, lindsey vonn, marit bjoergen, mikaela shiffrin, pyeongchang, snowboarding, speed skating, winter olympic games, yevgenia medvedeva
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Olympic February: Figure Skating

Thursday, February 22nd, 2018

February 22, 2018

The second exciting week at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang has had figure skating fans on the edges of their seats. German pairs team Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot, Japanese men’s skater Yuzuru Hanyu, and Canadian ice dance team Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir all took gold after tough competitions on the ice. During the contests, United States men’s skater Nathan Chen became the first person to land five clean quadruple jumps (four rotations in mid-air) in a single Olympic program (it would have been six, but Chen’s hand touched the ice for balance after one of the jumps).

Ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada perform their short dance during the figure skating competition at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, at the Gangneung Ice Arena on February 19, 2018. Credit: © Valery Sharifulin, Getty Images

Canadian ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir perform their short program during the ice dancing competition at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Gangneung Ice Arena in South Korea on Feb. 19, 2018. Credit: © Valery Sharifulin, Getty Images

To break it down, pairs is an event with a male skater and a female skater. They do jumps, spins, and lifts. Ice dance is an event with a male skater and female skater, too. They do challenging patterns, lifts (with restrictions), and spins. Men and women also do solo performances with jumps, spins, and footwork. Each couple or individual performs two programs (performances), one short and one long—also called a “free” program. The points earned in both programs add up to the total score.

Prior to winning gold in the 2018 Winter Olympics, German skater Savchenko had competed in four Olympics (three for Germany, one for Ukraine), but never won gold. In 2014 (after winning bronze at the Sochi Olympics), she paired with French-born Bruno Massot, who became a German citizen to skate with Savchenko. The pair earned medals at two world championships before taking gold in Pyeongchang. It is the third Olympics for Canadian fan favorites Virtue and Moir. They took gold in Vancouver in 2010 and silver at Sochi in 2014. In 2018, Virtue and Moir earned the highest score ever recorded for a short dance program (beating their own record) as well as another record for overall points.

Soohorang (left) and Bandabi (right). Credit: © Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018

Soohorang (left), the official mascot of the 2018 Winter Olympics, is a white tiger. Bandabi (right), mascot of the Paralympics, is an Asiatic black bear. Credit: © Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018

Japanese skaters took first and second in the men’s solo event. In winning gold this year, Yuzuru Hanyu repeated his achievement from the 2014 games, becoming the first men’s back-to-back Olympic champion since Team USA’s Dick Button did it in the 1948 and 1952 winter games. Hanyu’s teammate Shoma Uno took second, and Javier Fernandez earned Spain’s first-ever Olympic figure skating medal by winning bronze. U.S. skater Nathan Chen recovered from a rocky short program to dazzle with quadruple jumps in his long program and finish fifth overall.

The popularity of ice dancing in the United States increased after Meryl Davis and Charlie White became the first Americans to win gold in the event in 2014. In 2018, Team USA’s Maia and Alex Shibutani, a brother-sister duo dubbed the “Shib Sibs,” won bronze behind Canada’s Virtue and Moir and silver medalists Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France. The first Olympic medals in ice dancing were awarded in 1976 at the winter games in Innsbruck, Austria.

Tags: figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice dancing, pairs skating, pyeongchang, short-track, speed skating, winter olympic games
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