Kristen Santos-Griswold, U.S. women take gold, silver to cap historic short track worlds
Kristen Santos-Griswold won a medal in all five events, including her first world title, as the U.S. women's short track team had their best world championships since the sport was added to the Olympic program.
Santos-Griswold, 29, won the 1000m, which had to be restarted, on the last day of worlds on Sunday in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
She added silver with the women's relay and bronze as part of the mixed-gender relay on Sunday. On Saturday, Santos-Griswold took silver in the 1500m (with teammate Corinne Stoddard taking bronze) and bronze in the 500m.
Santos-Griswold became the first American to win a medal in all three Olympic distances — 500m, 1000m and 1500m — at one worlds since short track became an Olympic medal sport in 1992.
She also became the first American to win a world short track title since 2011 when Katherine Reutter-Adamek took the women's 1500m) and Simon Cho won the men's 500m.
Before this weekend, the most recent U.S. medal at short track worlds came in 2014.
In Sunday's 1000m final, Belgian Hanne Desmet originally crossed the finish line first, followed by Italian Arianna Fontana.
But the race was called back due to a three-skater crash on the final lap that involved Santos-Griswold, Dutchwoman Suzanne Schulting and South Korean Kim Gil-Li.
Desmet was disqualified for her role in causing the crash.
In the re-run, Santos-Griswold led from start to finish, prevailing by 332 thousandths of a second over Kim.
