Australian short track speed skater Tatiana Borodulina has collected her first medal of the 2008/09 World Cup season and the second of her career, winning bronze in Beijing.
Borodulina won her preliminary round in the 500m event, then added a second placing in her heat to earn a berth in the quarter final round.
Australian short track speed skater Tatiana Borodulina has collected her first medal of the 2008/09 World Cup season and the second of her career, winning bronze in Beijing.
Borodulina won her preliminary round in the 500m event, then added a second placing in her heat to earn a berth in the quarter final round. She placed second to Fu Tian Yu in the quarter final, then followed the Chinese skater across the line for second place in the semi-final round.
In the final, the Olympic Winter Institute (OWI) 23-year-old skated superbly to disrupt a potential Chinese trifecta, finishing behind reigning World Cup champion Wang Meng and her team-mate Liu Qiuhong to claim the bronze, relegating Fu to fourth place.
Meng was at her brilliant best, recording a time of 42.609 seconds to take 0.516 seconds off her own world record for the distance.
Borodulina was confident she could make to podium after keeping up with Fu in the early rounds.
"I had a lot of speed when I skated behind her in the quarter and semi, and thought I could pass her if I got the chance in the final,” she said.
“I built up the speed behind her until one lap to go, then managed to pass her on the straight before the last corner.”
“She tried to use her arm to stop me going by, but I was able to stay on my feet to finish third.”
“I was so happy when I came to the finish line."
Olympic Winter Institute short track speed skating coach Ann Zhang was delighted with the performance.
“Tatiana’s major problem has been her standing start, but we have been working on that, and today she got away much closer to Meng Wang,” she said.
“Meng broke the world record, so it was a very fast race, and to finish third was a fantastic result.”
Borodulina has now collected bronze and four top ten placings from the five races she has contested this season, and two bronze medals and six top ten results from the nine outings she has had since joining the Australian squad last season.
In the men’s events, OWI team-mate Elliott Shriane skated to the first top ten result of his career, finishing tenth in the men’s 500m, setting a new national record in the process.
Team-mate Lachlan Hay had his best result for the season when he placed 13th in the 1500m.
Barry White
OWI
