Even before the 2022 Winter Olympics began, speed skater Brittany Bowe was making headlines. But unlike her teammates, Bowe received attention for something unrelated to her performance on the ice.
After qualifying for Beijing in the 500 meters, 1,000 meters, and 1,500 meters, the 33-year-old gave up her Olympic spot in the 500 so that her friend, Erin Jackson, could also compete. Jackson, who is ranked number one in the world in the 500-meter event, slipped at the trials and finished one spot out of qualification, meaning she would not have gone to Beijing.
“It was not a difficult decision to make,” Bowe tells SELF. “We only get one shot to make the Olympic team, and I feel really blessed that I’m in the position to give her the shot to compete in her best event. I still have my other two events.”
After Bowe spoke to SELF, her two events soon returned to three: A couple weeks after the trials, the United States was awarded an extra Olympic spot in the 500 meters—meaning that Bowe, a three-time Olympian, would get to compete in a third event after all.
Her eyes are set on the top of the podium in Beijing, after taking home the bronze medal in the team pursuit event and stacking up two fifth-place finishes and one fourth-place in three individual events at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. Bowe earned a 10th-place finish in the 1,500 meters on February 7, and is one of the gold-medal favorites in the 1,000 meters, which will take place on February 17.
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“My goal is definitely to come home with gold,” she says. “I’ve won a lot of gold medals on the World Cup circuit [and] World Championship level, but the one thing that’s missing from my resume is an Olympic medal in an individual event. I’m hopeful to come home with two medals, and I would be so blessed if one or two of them could be gold.”
While Bowe’s looking to reach the pinnacle of sport on the ice, she actually didn’t get her start on the ice at all. Bowe was a national champion inline skater and an NCAA Division I basketball player at Florida Atlantic University before she received an invitation from the United States Olympics & Paralympic Committee to try out for speed skating. After just one year of skating on ice, she was invited to join the U.S. national team in 2011. Two years later, she set her first world record.
“I realized I had a real opportunity to be special in the sport,” she says of the record-breaking moment.
Her 2019 best of 1:11.61 is still the world record in the 1,000 meters.
“Anything can happen at the Olympics,” she says. “Sometimes people who are not medal contenders come out of nowhere and have the race of their life and win a medal. I feel really confident with where I am and am excited to represent the United States.”
Source: https://www.self.com