Ter Mors medals in 2 different sports at same Winter Games
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Netherlands’ Yara Van Kerkhof, Lara Van Ruijven, Suzanne Schulting and Jorien ter Mors celebrate after winning their women’s 3000 meters short track speedskating relay B final in the Gangneung Ice Arena at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Gangneung, South Korea, today.
GANGNEUNG, South Korea >> Speedskater Jorien ter Mors became the first woman to win Olympic medals in different sports at the same Winter Games.
Ter Mors added bronze in the short-track arena to the gold she won in long-track speedskating last week.
“That’s really special,” said ter Mors, who skated with the Dutch team today in a tumultuous 3,000-meter relay. “I hoped for it coming here into the games but after losing the semis, I didn’t expect to win a medal anymore.”
Ter Mors previously won the 1,000-meter race at the Gangneung Oval.
Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic has a chance to match ter Mors’ feat. After winning the super-G in skiing, Ledecka can add a medal in the snowboard parallel giant slalom on Saturday.
Ter Mors’ bronze came under the craziest of circumstances. With the Dutch team relegated to the B final of the relay, there were four other teams in the A final to share out the medals.
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In the B final, ter Mors raced the last short-track race of her career with such abandon that she helped the Dutch team set a world record. Still, it was all supposed to be for naught.
Yet in the A final, both China and Canada were disqualified for impeding, stunningly pushing up the Dutch to bronze.
“It’s really amazing to get a bronze medal and skating a world record in the B finals,” ter Mors said.
The last man to win medals in different sports at one Winter Games was Heikki Hasu of Finland. He did it in cross-country skiing and Nordic combined.
Ter Mors won’t do it again. As of next season, she will exclusively center on long-track racing, which is much bigger in the Netherlands than short-track.
