Brittany Bowe competes in the ladies 1,500-meter during ISU World Cup Speed Skating on Nov. 24, 2019 in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland.
The 1,000-meter is the best event for Olympic long track speedskating medalist Brittany Bowe, and she ran her winning streak to one year with a gold medal at the world cup stop in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, on Friday.
The reigning world champion, who won her third world cup season title in the 1,000-meter last season, finished in 1:14.280. It was just a hair shy of her own track record of 1:14.10, but still faster than everyone else on the ice. Russia’s Daria Kachanova came in second with a time of 1:14.753 and teammate Olga Fatkulina was third in 1:15.093.
It’s Bowe’s third medal of the season after winning gold in the 1,000-meter and setting a track record in Minsk, Belarus, in the world cup season opener and adding a bronze medal in the 1,500-meter to the tally the same weekend.
The 31-year-old and two-time Olympian from Ocala, Florida, suffered a concussion in a training accident in 2016. Her first victory in her return to the ice came in the 1,500-meter in Obihiro, Japan, on Nov. 18, 2018 and took second in the 1,000-meter at the next stop in Tomakomai, Japan, the following weekend. It was the last time she didn’t win at the distance. Her current streak started in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland, on Dec. 7, 2018.
Bowe has now won six world cup gold medals in a row in the 1,000-meter—plus the world title—and has a handful of medals of other colors, including gold, in the 1,500-meter and 500-meter during that span. Bowe is off to a great start in pursuit of her fourth overall world cup title in the 1,000-meter, which would tie Heather Bergsma and leave her trailing only Bonnie Blair for most title by an American woman.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
