Kim Boutin climbed on the third step of the podium in the 500 meters of short track speed skating on Monday at the Beijing Olympics.
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In a race that required three starts, Boutin, who started from the third lane, quickly took third place and never left it. She needed 42.724 s to cross the finish line. Italian Arianna Fontana (42.488) and Dutch Suzanne Schulting (42.559) beat her.
The 27-year-old Quebecer thus won her fourth Olympic medal. The world record holder in the 500m (41.936) was decorated with bronze over the distance in Pyeongchang in 2018. She also finished second in the 1000m and third in the 1500m in South Korea. She could add to her tally in the women’s 3,000m relay later this week.
A little earlier, Boutin had needed the “photo-finish” to reach the final. In the semi-finals, she only edged Russian Elena Seregina by 21 thousandths of a second for second place.
In her first Games, Alyson Charles finished third in the B final. She had reached the semi-final despite a fall caused by her compatriot Florence Brunelle. The latter had also been penalized and consequently eliminated.
In the men’s 1000m, Quebecers Jordan Pierre-Gilles and Pascal Dion were eliminated from the start in the quarter. Pierre-Gilles was first penalized following contact with China’s Dajing Wu, while Dion crashed on his own.
