BEIJING (Reuters) – Netherlands’ Suzanne Schulting set an Olympic record to ease into the quarter-finals of the short track speed skating 500-metre event at the Beijing Games on Saturday.
The 24-year-old, who is hoping to achieve a clean sweep at the Capital Indoor Stadium, skated the distance in 42.379 seconds to beat the previous mark set by South Korea’s Choi Min-jeong at the Pyeongchang Olympics by 0.043 seconds.
Defending champion Arianna Fontana, looking to become the only short tracker, female or male, to win nine Olympic medals, also advanced smoothly as the Italian qualified from her heat ahead of China’s Zhang Yuting.
Twice Olympic champion Choi progressed by taking the first of two qualifying spots in her heat with world record holder Kim Boutin of Canada also through as heat winner.
The quarter-finals, semis and finals of the 500m will be contested on Monday.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Ken Ferris)
