Olympic Short Track Speed Skater Elise Christie raced to gold at the ISU World Cup in Moscow over the weekend as she returned from injury to take the title in the Women’s 1000m.
The 21-year-old from Livingston, Scotland, was in fine form as she held an early lead over the nine laps of the race, as the battle for silver and bronze went on behind her. The bold move to skate from the front against a tough field paid dividends as she captured gold in 1:31.21, pushing World Championship medallist Qiuhong Liu of China into second with World Cup leader Sakai Yui taking third.
This is Christie’s third ISU World Cup medal of the season having already claimed two 1000m silver medals at legs in Canada and Japan. An injury to her wrist at the European Championships last month looked likely to rule Christie out of Moscow, but her determination to compete saw her back on the ice and going for gold. Christie is now ranked second in the world over the 1000m for her performances this season.
Christie said: “It’s been a fantastic weekend for me. When I fell at the European Championships and hurt my wrist no one knew if I’d be able to skate here, that made me realise how much I wanted it and how hard I’d worked. I at least wanted to be able to get out there and have a go.
“I didn’t wake up thinking that I was going to win, but I woke up determined to try. And I’m extremely happy with the result. Three medals this season is great and I’m really excited about the World Championships”
National Performance Director, Stuart Horsepool, said: “I think Elise’s medal this weekend shows a great strength of character. To have injured her wrist at Europeans, flown back home and had it assessed, then to fly back out to Moscow is a lot to go through in the space of a few days. But Elise is a good competitor, she didn’t let it affect her. She led the final from the front, which is a really hard way to win any race, but it paid off, and I’m really happy for her.”
With Jon Eley forced out of Moscow due to injury, Ian Upcott stepped in to the Men’s 5000m relay teaming up with Richard Shoebridge, Paul Stanley and European silver medallist Jack Whelbourne. With strong performances the quartet progressed through to the ‘A’ Final where they finished in fourth behind world and Olympic champions Canada, Olympic silver medallists Korea and China.
Great Britain had already hit the six medal target, set at the beginning of the season, coming into the competition and Horsepool is impressed with the way the team has performed throughout the season: “The whole squad have shown a resilience and ability to bounce back this week. We took a pretty big hit at Europeans with injuries to Jon and Elise, but everyone has stepped up and performed well.
“This season our performances have improved across the board. It’s not just the medals that have increased but the number of people making the top-16, which is fantastic all round for us. It’s going to be important going into the World Championships that we can turn those top-16 performances into medal opportunities and that is what we will be working on in the coming weeks.”
The team will now miss the final ISU World Cup of the season in order to focus on preparation for the World Championships in Shanghai next month. The ISU World Cups provide a valuable marker of form as the British team builds towards the World Championships and the Sochi 2014 Olympics.