Kristen Santos-Griswold (USA) capped a stellar season with her finest ever performance on Sunday at Rottterdam Ahoy, marauding to 1000m gold at the Nederlandse Loterij 2024 ISU World Short Track Championships.
Santos-Griswold prevailed in an incident-packed A Final which had to be restarted after a clash which saw Hanne Desmet (BEL) disqualified and Suzanne Schulting (NED) taken to hospital with a broken ankle.
The Netherlands crowd, who had watched their individual athletes struggle this weekend, finally got something to cheer about, however, as their near-unbeatable women’s relay team continued their golden run – and got a ‘thank you’ from the King of the Netherlands as a reward.
Santos-Griswold keeps head amid A final chaos
The Women’s 1000m A final contained pretty much everything the wild sport of Short Track has to offer – athletic excellence, inch-perfect passes, crashes and controversy.
An extremely high-class field featured two-time 1000m Olympic champion Schulting, double 1000m European champion Desmet, Crystal Globe winner Kim Gilli (KOR), Santos-Griswold – who led the 1000m rankings this season – and two-time Olympic gold medallist Arianna Fontana (ITA).
The first race saw Schulting, Desmet and Santos-Griswold swap positions at the front. But on the final lap, with all three jostling for the lead, Schulting and Desmet clashed.
Schulting fell and Desmet crossed the line first, but the Belgian was judged to have impeded the Dutch racer.
