Schulting's shoes lay groundwork for success

Fashionable among NBA players, sneaker scribbles have made their way onto the ice, with Dutch skater Suzanne Schulting crediting her own shoe code as motivation for her record-breaking heroics.

With a gold medal around her neck and a world record under her name, short-track speed skater Schulting has cemented her status as the undisputed queen of the 1,000m at Beijing 2022.

The 24-year-old set a new all-time mark of 1 min 26.514 sec in her quarterfinal heat en route to retaining her title on Friday. The old record (1:26.661) had been held by the Republic of Korea's Shim Suk-hee since October 2012.

A two-time world champion in the event, Schulting said she's been visualizing shattering the old mark for a while so marked it out on her shoes.

"The plan was last year when I wanted to get new shoes, I thought 'OK, I am going to put 1:26.5 on the shoe on the corners'. Tonight, I watched the screen after the race and I said, 'Yeah, that's damn close'," Schulting said in the post-final news conference.

"I became really confident out there after skating a world record. I was focusing on what I had to do and on my technique and everything. It's insane," said Schulting.

ROK's Choi Min-jeong finished second in the 1,000m ahead of Belgian bronze-medalist Hanne Desmet.

Schulting suffered a surprise defeat in the 500m when she was edged to gold by Italian veteran Arianna Fontana. However, that setback only motivated her to go faster and harder in the 1,000m.

"I am so happy I was able to get back on track from the 500m," said the native of Heerenveen. "It was frustrating it (the 500m) was so close and I got beaten by a really great athlete.

"But when I was at the medal plaza and stood on the podium, I was like, 'I really want to have that gold one.' So it was kind of motivation for today."

In a fiercely contested final at the Capital Indoor Stadium, Schulting got off to a flier and never let up to fend off a charge from Choi to finish in 1:28.391.

"I saw her coming, and when you see Choi coming, you're getting, not scared, but you have to be aware," Schulting said. "She is a great skater."

Choi was emotional after the race. "I thought of the people supporting me all the time, especially my mom and my sister, so I couldn't help crying," she said.

Desmet, whose bronze was Belgium's first Olympic medal in short-track speed skating, attributed her sharp improvement to training with her Dutch opponents at a camp in Heerenveen.

"I love those guys, all of them," Desmet said of training with Schulting and co. "We train really well together and we get along. I'm very happy. I will be cheering them on in the relay. Suzanne is a fighter. She just goes for it 100 percent."