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Kristen Santos-Griswold continued skating after the Olympic heartbreak and is better than ever

Kristen Santos-Griswold continued skating after the Olympic heartbreak and is better than ever

Sakege012 mins

Pain has been a big part of Kristen Santos-Griswold’s short track speedskating career, including at the top last March.

At the World Championships held in the Netherlands, Santos-Griswold became the first American to win a world title in the sport in 13 years.

It was hard-earned: Santos-Griswold had to skate twice in the 1,000-meter final and suffered a nose injury that later required surgery.

Originally, Belgium’s Hanne Desmet crossed the finish line first, but the race was canceled due to a three-skater accident on the final lap involving Santos-Griswold, the Netherlands’ Suzanne Schulting and South Korea’s Kim Gil-Li. Desmet was disqualified for her role in provoking him.

In the replay, Santos-Griswold, his nose swollen from the fall, led from start to finish. She beat Kim, the best skater in the world in the October-February World Cup season, by 33 hundredths of a second.

“I definitely never do anything the easy way,” Santos-Griswold said Tuesday.

Take the 2017-18 season as an example. A month before the Olympic trials, another skater accidentally ran over Santos-Griswold’s left hand and wrist during training.

She had surgery and was off the ice for more than two weeks. Returning to practice, she needed Travis Griswold (then her boyfriend, now her husband) to lace her skates.

Racing with a cast, Santos-Griswold placed fourth in the trials, losing out by one spot to PyeongChang’s three-woman team.

Entering the 2022 Olympic trials, she was the top skater in the U.S. Santos-Griswold debated skipping those trials due to a left foot injury. He could have applied for a medical exemption for a spot on the Olympic team, but decided to compete.

Santos-Griswold ended up winning four of the six races to make his first Olympic team in his third try at age 27.

She performed so well early that season, including her first World Cup victory, that she reconsidered her plan to quit skating after the Beijing Olympics.

Kristen Santos-Griswold

KEARNS, UTAH – DECEMBER 18: Kristen Santos wipes away tears after winning the women’s 1500 meter final on Day 2 of the US Olympic Short Track Speed ​​Skating Trials at the Utah Olympic Oval on the 18th December 2021 in Kearns, Utah. (Photo by Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)

Kristen Santos-Griswold after making her first Olympic team. (Getty Images)

Then at the Games, in the last lap of the 1,000-meter final, she was one of four women competing for three medals. The Italian Arianna Fontana tried to cut hard inside in front of Santos-Griswold. Both skaters fell and were overtaken by the fifth skater, Desmet.

Fontana was disqualified. Santos-Griswold finished fourth and has not seen a replay of the race.

“I had thought about it before because I thought it would definitely be a good learning experience,” he said. “But I’m not ready for it yet.”

After Beijing, he discussed whether or not to continue in the 2026 Olympic cycle.

“I needed that opportunity to feel heartbroken for a second before I could sit back and look at my future and figure out where it was headed next,” she said.

Santos-Griswold continued skating and decided the journey was more important than the outcome she couldn’t completely control.

She flourished. In the 2022-23 season, he finished on the podium in all six World Cups, all in second and third place.

“I think there was a moment when an athlete changed their goal from wanting to win a medal to wanting to win,” he said. “I think that happened to me that year. “I became much more motivated, as if I didn’t want to play it safe.”

In 2023-24, Santos-Griswold has placed on the podium in 17 of her 18 individual races with nine wins between the World Cup, Four Continents Championships and World Championships.

She became the second American to win a World Cup race over all three distances (500 m, 1000 m, 1500 m) after Apolo Ohno.

At the World Championships, she won a medal in all five events, including two relays. Before that, no American skater had won an individual world medal since 2014. No American relay had won a medal since 2012.

With her 1,000-meter title, Santos-Griswold became the oldest individual world champion in at least 25 years.

Kristen Santos-Griswold

ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS – MARCH 17: (L-R) Gilli Kim of South Korea poses with the silver medal, Kristen Santos-Griswold of the USA with the gold medal and Arianna Fontana of Italy with the bronze medal after of the victory ceremony in the women’s 1000 m final during ISU World Short Track Speed ​​Skating Championships 2024 at AHOY Arena on March 17, 2024 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos – International Skating Union/International Skating Union via Getty Images)

Kristen Santos-Griswold (center) after winning her first world title. (International Skating Union via Getty Images)

“I know I had the ability to win medals like that for a while, but it was like figuring out how to handle that skill in racing,” he said. “Especially last year, I learned this concept of feeling like I could control a race without controlling it. In the past, I felt like I had to control the race by being in front or in the exact position I wanted to be in at that moment and making these panicked movements.

“By realizing that I can let other people do what they want, I have the ability to react to that and make a move at the end and do this and that. This concept really helped me realize that I didn’t have to spend unnecessary energy racing, panicking about what my plan is and what I have to do.”

This season promises to be different. On the one hand, the format of the competition is changing.

In the previous World Cup system, a skater raced in one of two individual events each day. In the new World Tour system, top nations can enter three skaters of their choice in each distance, opening the door for the best skaters to compete in each race. That could mean stronger fields that look more like the World Championships and Olympics.

The World Tour starts this weekend in Montreal, live Peacock on Saturdays and Sundays at 1:30 pm ET.

The circuit then heads to Salt Lake City the following weekend. Santos-Griswold will compete on her 30th birthday in front of her largest group of friends and family since the 2022 Olympic Trials.

“He had a very, very good summer and is skating faster than ever,” said American short track coach Stephen Gough, “but until we get out there and see how things go, it will remain a mystery.”

Santos-Griswold is taking advantage of this season to set the table for next.

“My biggest goal now is to gain the most experience and confidence to go to the Milan Olympics,” he said. “Put myself in dangerous or stressful situations in a race and understand that I have the ability to get through it.”

Santos-Griswold is about halfway through graduate school in physical therapy at the University of Utah. He plans to take a year off for the Olympics, then return and finish in 2027.

He most likely will not skate beyond the 2025-26 season.

“But, I mean, I said that last time and things changed,” he said, “so never say never.”

ISU World Short Track Speed ​​Skating Championships 2024 – Rotterdam

Arianna Fontana, who holds an Italian record 11 Winter Olympic medals in short track, is adding long track speed skating.

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