Julie Letai looks on before the women's 1000-meter final at the U.S. Short Track Speed Skating Olympic Trials on Dec. 18, 2021 in Kearns, Utah.
Speedskating has always been an enthralling Olympic sport. The addition of the short track discipline in 1992 added a fast-paced element where skaters jostle for position in tight spaces and are sometimes knocked off the course in dramatic crashes.
Short track speedskating really grabbed U.S. spectators’ attention in 2002 when the Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City. American star Apolo Anton Ohno won the first two of his eight Olympic medals, making him Team USA’s most decorated Winter Olympian by the time he retired in 2010.
With the International Olympic Committee continually creating events with women and men competing together, short track is one of four sports that will include a new mixed team race at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, bringing the total number of mixed events at the Winter Games to nine.
Julie Letai, a 21-year-old from Medfield, Massachusetts, qualified for her first Olympics in Beijing, where she’s expected to race on the women’s 3,000-meter relay team and is a candidate to be one of the two women on the 2,000-meter mixed relay team.
“I think it’s cool,” Letai said of the mixed team debut. “If anything, just for the variety it's cool, but also the symbolism of it, the genders working together. And I think it kind of insinuates a more equal platform as well and that we can all work together no matter what.
“It doesn’t have to always be women and men (separately), but it’s just about like more of the whole cohesive team in general. So I think it’s a cool movement.”
Similar to the women’s relay, the mixed relay has four competitors on each team. Each gets two legs of the 18-lap race around the track, which is just over 111 meters around. The women take the first two turns, followed by the men. The first leg for each athlete is 2.5 laps, then they go two laps the second time out. With the two genders and the different lap counts, there is plenty to keep track of while also wanting to skate your best.
“When I’m in a relay, I’m just constantly repeating the number of laps over and over in my head to make sure that I’m not forgetting it,” said Letai, the first alternate for the 1,500-meter event. “I would say that’s more the confusing part because it’s the same person that you go out for every time. But making sure that you’re starting to get ready at the right time and counting the right number of laps so you come out at the right time is the harder part.”
