Hot Start In Norway Gives Brittany Bowe Back To Back 1,000-Meter Wins

Brittany Bowe celebrates after she competes in the women's 1,000-meter race at the ISU World Speed Skating Championships on Feb. 13, 2021 in Heerenveen, Netherlands. 

Brittany Bowe is off to a hot start in the Olympic year, the U.S. long track speedskater having now posted back-to-back wins at the 1,000-meter distance to open the world cup season.
Bowe, 33, outpaced the field by nearly a second in winning her opening race Friday at the world cup in Stavanger, Norway, crossing the line in 1:14.168. That was .84 of a second faster than Miho Takagi and .99 ahead of Nao Kodaira, both of Japan.
Fellow American Kimi Goetz also raced the 1,000, finishing eighth.
These results continue a hot streak for Bowe, who opened the world cup season this past weekend by winning the 1,000 and placing second in the 1,500 in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland. Her time of 1:14.786 in the 1,000 last week set a track record.
Now just 77 days out from the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, Bowe is firmly establishing herself as a bona fide medal contender.
The native of Ocala, Florida, who got her start racing on inline skates and was a Div. 1 college basketball player before transitioning to ice speedskating, has consistently been one of the world’s best at the 1,000-meter distance. She won her third world title at the distance in 2021, to go with a 1,500 world title in 2015. She’s all a two-time winner at the world sprint championships.
Should she qualify for her third Winter Games in Beijing, Bowe would be seeking her first individual Olympic gold medal. She won a bronze medal in 2018 as part of the women’s team pursuit squad.
The Stavanger world cup continues through Sunday. It is the second of five world cups scheduled for this season, following two in a pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season.