China’s Wang Meng won her third gold medal of the 2010 Olympics with a victory in the ladies’ 1,000 metres at the Pacific Coliseum on Friday, while all three Canadians failed to advance to the final.
Wang lead the race right from the start and did not give up her lead, finishing first with a time of 1:29.213. The dominant short track speed skater also won a gold medal in the 500 metres and the 3,000 metre relay earlier in the Games.
The silver medal went to Katherine Reutter of the United States and Park Seung-Hi of Korea won the bronze. It is the second medal in Vancouver for both women, as Reutter also won bronze in the relay, and Park took third in the 1,500.
Zhou Yang, also from China, was disqualified in the final after impeding Park while trying to pass her. She had been the fastest qualifier, making it through the semifinals with a world record time of 1:29.049.
She had also set an Olympic record in the quarterfinals.
Both Canada’s Kalyna Roberge and Jessica Gregg skated in the B final, finishing second and third. With Zhou’s disqualification, Roberge’s overall position was fifth while Gregg ended in sixth place.
Roberge just missed out on the final, finishing third in her semifinal. Her heat took some time to get going, as three separate skaters false-started.
Once it finally did get underway, she had some bad luck as she received a small bump at the very first turn and was unable to recover. She did pass one skater, but there wasn’t enough room left in the end for her to make the final pass for second.
Gregg finished fourth in her semifinal heat, trailing the entire race. She remained close to the lead skaters through most of the race, but was unable to maintain her speed and ended well back of the top finishers.
Canada’s Tania Vicent also skated on Friday, but was disqualified in the quarterfinals.
Chinese women have dominated the short track at these Olympics, as all four races have been won by the Chinese. Beyond the team gold in relay and Wang’s victories in the 1,000 and 500, Zhou also took gold in the 1,500 metres.