Short-Track Speedskating: How It Works and Who’s Worth Watching

In most races, Schulting’s strategy is simple. She uses her immense power to go to the front immediately, separating from the pack and avoiding the chaos and crashes.

Kristen Santos, a 27-year-old from Fairfield, Conn., is the United States’ best hope for a medal. Her best event is the 1,000 meters, but she is competitive at each distance and is the fourth-ranked skater overall this season. She barely failed to qualify for the 2018 Olympics, in large part because an opponent’s skate sliced tendons in her hand and wrist weeks before the Olympic trials.

That lost chance has driven her to new heights. Missing the Olympics “was not the best feeling ever,” she said in an interview. “So just being able to use that experience and that feeling as motivation, and knowing I didn’t want to just go to the Games and be an Olympian — I wanted to be an Olympic medalist.”

When Arianna Fontana of Italy won her first Olympic medal in 2006, Schulting was just 8. Short-track speedskaters tend to retire young or transition to long track because of the injuries and stress the sport puts on bodies, but Fontana, 31, has endured, winning nine Olympic medals, the most ever in short track. Her specialty is the 500 meters, which she won in the 2018 Games.

Men

Shaolin Sandor Liu and Shaoang Liu are brothers who were born in Hungary to a Hungarian mother and a Chinese father. They speak Chinese and spent time training in China early in their lives. “My physique, my physical power is Hungarian, and my speed is Chinese,” Shaoang Liu has said. “I have both parts.”

The brothers led Hungary to an Olympic record and a gold medal in the 5,000-meter relay in 2018, its first ever Winter Olympics gold medal. They were also on the ice as Hungary took the bronze in the mixed-gender relay on Saturday.

Shaolin Sandor, the elder Liu brother, has won gobs of world and European championship medals. Shaoang — who arrived late to Beijing because he tested positive for the coronavirus in January — isn’t quite as accomplished, but has won a few himself.