SHANGHAI, China (December 11, 2011) – Team USA’s ladies returned to the podium twice today on the closing day of the ISU Korean Air World Cup 4 in Shanghai.
Katherine Reutter (Champaign, IL) lead Team USA with a gold medal performance in today’s 1000m. Finishing with a time of 1:32.721, today's win marked Reutter’s ninth career World Cup gold medal.
“ I performed even better than I had anticipated today, which is a nice surprise going into a competition where I felt I would be happy just as long as I could improve from last week,” said Reutter. “Not only did I improve, but I exceeded my expectations and brought home a gold, which feels really good given my last several months of injury. Hopefully I can continue this trend for the rest of the season.”
China’s Jianrou Li won silver in today’s 1000m with a time of 1:32.864, and current 1000m World Cup leader Yui Sakai (JPN) captured bronze with a time of 1:32.882. Lana Gehring (Glenview, IL) was fourth in today’s A Final, posting 1:33.014. Reutter currently ranks fourth overall in the 1000m, followed by Gehring at fifth.
Team USA Ladies relay squad (Gehring, Alyson Dudek (Hales Corners, WI), Reutter, and Jessica Smith (Melvindale, MI), won silver today with a time of 4:13.000. Current World Cup relay leader, Team China, won today’s event at 4:12.394 in front of a hometown crowd, while Japan took bronze posting 4:13.763.
“All of the ladies today were very happy to make our first A Final of the season, and not only that, but to get a silver medal,” added Reutter. “It was a very close and strong race. Unfortunately, China had a little bit more left in the tank with the last three laps than we did, but we performed to the best of our ability and we are extremely proud of our performance and our results.”
Extended race results from today’s World Cup competition are available at http://www.sportresult.com/federations/ISU/ShortTrack/ Replays of this weekend’s World Cup races are available online at http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/isu/site/index.html
Team USA now travels back to the U.S. to train and prepare for the 2012 Short Track National Championships and winter World Cup team trials, Jan. 6-8, at the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns, UT.
Team USA World Cup 4 Medal Summary
Katherine Reutter Gold 1000m 1:32.721
Team USA Silver 3000m Relay 4:13.000
(Gehring, Dudek, Reutter, Smith & Emily Scott (Springfield,MO)
Katherine Reutter Silver 1500m 2:22.764
Jessica Smith Bronze 500m(1) 45.338
2011-12 Team USA Short Track World Cup total: 13