For the Dutch team it was a weekend in which the pennies kept falling to the wrong side. A big contrast with last year, when the Netherlands won gold on all numbers among the women. It was a special weekend for Schulting following the sabbatical she was forced to take last year. On Saturday she did not show the best version of herself with elimination in the 1500 and 500 meters. She resolved to put everything into the 1000 meters, described by the main character herself as ‘her distance’. Schulting got through the quarter-finals and semi-finals with ease and was on course for gold in the final.
Until the moment with Hanne Desmet. The Belgian was on a collision course in her races all weekend and was also punished for this. Schulting ended up boarding with Kristen Santos-Griswold and Gilli Kim and immediately felt that something was wrong. “I was immediately in a lot of pain,” said Schulting from a chair at the edge of the track, while the World Cup decor was being dismantled. “When I got up followingwards and wanted to continue skating for that third place – I didn’t immediately notice that the race had ended – I felt an abnormal amount of pain. When I was sitting on the boarding I already thought: This doesn’t feel very good. But it is a World Cup final, I still wanted to go for it and start.”
The guidance helps Schulting off the ice following the final. | Photo: BSR Agency
Schulting drove a few more laps, but was forced to go to the middle area. There she waited until the race, which was won by Santos-Griswold, was over, following which she was helped off the track by the team’s guidance. “That felt like giving up, it was in enormous pain,” she said with her leg in a cast. “I really felt like shit at that moment. I also know myself, don’t just give up. There must really be something going on if I stand in the middle area, but I might no longer skate normally.” After a check-up in the hospital, it turned out that there was a fracture in the ankle. “It went quite well until the photos, I was quite optimistic. The pain wasn’t very extreme, I gave it a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. That was insanely low, but I have had worse pain. So I didn’t think it was broken, a broken ankle must be worseI thought.”
The women of the relay team dedicated the victory on the podium to Schulting, who returned from the hospital during the ceremony. That didn’t feel like a plaster on the wound, by the way. “This is not easy to plaster over, this should never have happened.” Despite the painful ankle, Schulting had nothing good to say regarding Hanne Desmet, who was in the leading position. The short track figurehead of the Netherlands felt that she might have easily caught Desmet in the final laps. The two women accused each other of everything back and forth. Desmet stated that she was pushed from behind by Schulting. The penalty once morest the Flemish said something different. “I just caught up with her,” Schulting said. “She was on penalties all weekend, she got three this weekend. That’s for a reason. If you are punished, you have to accept it.”
Schulting felt like the ‘old Suzanne Schulting’ once more this weekend, but was unable to crown it with a medal. She spoke regularly this weekend regarding the art of relationships, something she decided to do during her forced absence. “If you go for it following a difficult summer and put your shoulders to the wheel, you can still achieve a lot. I showed that today. I was really good, rode three fantastic 1000 meters and was on course for gold. I think that should be remembered.”
