1,000 metres, Women

After two distances, the usually dominant East German women had yet to win their first title. But the 1,000 m seemed the perfect distance to set things straight, with heavily favored Karin Kania expected to win the gold. Defending Olympic champion Kania had won all four World Cup races in the distance this season, as well as the two 1000 ms at the World Sprint Championships. She had in fact won the World Sprint Championships six times in the past nine years. In addition, she had held the world record since 1986, last improving it at the Calgary World Cup in December 1987, to 1:18.11. The other medal contenders were the other two medallists in the 500 m, winner Bonnie Blair and runner-up Christa Rothenburger, and 1984 silver medallist Andrea Ehrig.

Ehrig started in the first pair, but her 1:19.32 was well outside the world record, which was not expected to hold up during the competition. In the third pair, Blair managed to beat Ehrig’s time by a full second, but her 1:18.31 was still two tenths off Kania’s rink record from December. Kania skated in the next pair. She started more consevatively than Blair, trailing the American’s split by half a second at the bell. But the former World Allround Champion had a much better final lap, gaining a full second on Blair. This gave her the lead, while lowering her own world record to 1:17.70. But Kania still had to wait for her teammate Rothenburger in the next pair. A typical sprinter, she got off at the same pace as Blair, meaning she had a half-second lead on Kania at 600 m. While Rothenburger also faded in the final lap, she did manage to hold on to her lead, and squeeze out 1:17.65, lowering the world record even further.

Rothenburger, whose world record would stand for nearly a decade, would win a third Olympic medal later in the year. At the Seoul Summer Olympics, she participated in the women’s track cycling sprint, gaining a silver medal. That made her the first person to win medals in the Winter and Summer Olympics in the same year. Since the Winter and Summer Games are no longer held in the same year, she will likely remain the only person to have achieved this.