Relay (3,000 metres), Women

There was only one favourite for the inaugural short track relay gold: Canada. They had won the event at 11 out of 16 World Championships, including the most recent six. With Sylvie Daigle and Nathalie Lambert as members, the Canadians also possessed the strongest individual skaters of the pre-Olympic seasons. The only nation that could hope to challenge them was China, which had twice improved the World Record at the pre-Olympic test event, besting the North Americans.

But China eliminated itself from contention, as Zhang Yanmei crashed hard while enjoying a comfortable last lap lead in the semi-finals. With the Chinese out, Canada was joined by the United States, Japan and the Unified Team. As the Soviet Union, the latter team had been runner-up at the last World Championships, but they were not able to challenge the Canadians. The Canadians made it a tactical race, holding off the Americans for most of the race to win by the biggest margin of victory at Albertville, 1.23 seconds.