Olympic Short Track Speed Skater Elise Christie beat the world champion to earn Britain a third World Cup medal of the season yesterday when she won silver in the Women’s 1000m.Competing in Saguenay, Canada, Christie impressed over the nine laps of the rink to beat world champion Ha-Ri Cho (Korea) and finish just behind home favourite and Olympic medallist Marianne St-Gelais (Canada) in 1:30.90.
Christie, who is originally from Livingston, Scotland, and now trains full time with the squad in Nottingham, has made a solid start to the season with a win at the KNSB Short Track International Invitation Cup in Heerenveen, Netherlands.
National Performance Director, Stuart Horsepool, said: “It was a really good skate from Elise and a great test of character for her to build on last weekend and perform well here.She beat the world champion, which just goes to show where her skating is at this season.”
There was further success from Great Britain with Jon Eley, having taken gold last weekend, reached his second World Cup Final in the 500m.
Eley just missed out on the medals as he was pushed into fourth position behind Olympic champions Olivier Jean and Charles Hamelin (Canada), and Russia’s Vladimir Grigoriev.
The GB Men’s 5000m Relay squad were unable to repeat last weekend’s silver medal performance but the team walked away as winners of the ‘B’ final and fifth place overall.
“Our goal this season is to turn performances into medals and we’re doing that,” added Horsepool. “So far we’ve got three medals from three different events which shows that it’s not just one person performing well, we have depth in the squad.
The team will now return to the national training base in Nottingham as they prepare for the third leg of the World Cup season in Nagoya, Japan at the beginning of December.
Robyn Rashford, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine
