Pain has been a large part of Kristen Santos-Griswold’s short track speed skating career, including at the pinnacle last March.
At the World Championships in the Netherlands, Santos-Griswold became the first American to win a global title in the sport in 13 years.
It was hard-earned: Santos-Griswold had to skate the 1000m final twice and suffered a nose injury that later required surgery.
Originally, Belgian Hanne Desmet crossed the finish line first, 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 it.
In the re-run, Santos-Griswold, with her nose swollen from the crash, led from start to finish. She prevailed over Kim, the world’s top skater in the October-through-February World Cup season, by 33 hundredths of a second.
“I definitely never do anything the easy way,” Santos-Griswold said Tuesday.
Take the 2017-18 season. One month before the Olympic Trials, another skater accidentally ran over Santos-Griswold’s left hand and wrist in training.
She had surgery and was off ice for more than two weeks. Upon returning to practice, she needed Travis Griswold (then her boyfriend, now her husband) to tie her skates for her.
Racing in a cast, Santos-Griswold placed fourth at trials, missing the three-woman team for PyeongChang by one spot.
Going into the 2022 Olympic Trials, she was the top U.S. skater. Santos-Griswold debated skipping those trials due to a left foot injury. She could have sought a medical exemption for a spot on the Olympic team, but instead decided to compete.
Santos-Griswold ended up winning four of the six races to make her first Olympic team in her third trials at age 27.
She performed so well early that season, including earning her first World Cup victory, that she reconsidered her plan to move on from skating after the Beijing Olympics.
KEARNS, UTAH - DECEMBER 18: Kristen Santos wipes away tears after winning the Women’s 1500 meter final on Day 2 of the US Short Track Speed Skating Olympic Trials at Utah Olympic Oval on December 18, 2021 in Kearns, Utah. (Photo by Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)
Kristen Santos-Griswold after making her first Olympic team. (Getty Images)
Then at the Games, in the last lap of the 1000m final, she was one of four women vying for three medals. Italian Arianna Fontana tried to cut inside tightly in front of Santos-Griswold. Both skaters fell and were passed by the fifth skater, Desmet.
Fontana was disqualified. Santos-Griswold ended up fourth and hasn’t watched a replay of the race.
“I’ve thought about it before because I figured it would definitely be a good learning experience,” she said. “But I’m not ready for it yet.”
After Beijing, she went back and forth on whether to continue for the 2026 Olympic cycle.
“I kind of needed that opportunity to feel heartbroken for a second before I could really sit down and look at my future and figure out where it was going next,” she said.
Santos-Griswold skated on, deciding that the journey was more important than the outcome that she couldn’t fully control.
She blossomed. In the 2022-23 season, she made the podium at all six World Cups, all second- and third-place finishes.
“There was just this moment that clicks, I think, for an athlete that changes from your goal wanting to be to medal into wanting to win,” she said. “I think that happened for me that year. I got a lot more motivated, like I don’t want to play it safe.”
In 2023-24, Santos-Griswold made the podium in 17 of her 18 individual races with nine victories among the World Cup, the Four Continents Championships and the World Championships.
She became the second American to win a World Cup race at all three distances (500m, 1000m, 1500m) after Apolo Ohno.
At the World Championships, she won a medal in all five events, including two relays. Before that, no U.S. skater had won an individual world medal since 2014. No U.S. relay had won a medal since 2012.
With her 1000m title, Santos-Griswold became the oldest first-time individual world champion in at least 25 years.
ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - MARCH 17: (L-R) Gilli Kim of South Korea poses with the silver medal, Kristen Santos-Griswold of USA with the gold medal and Arianna Fontana of Italy with the bronze medal after the victory ceremony in the Women 1000m Final during ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships 2024 at AHOY Arena on March 17, 2024 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos - International Skating Union/International Skating Union via Getty Images)
Kristen Santos-Griswold (center) after winning her first world title. (International Skating Union via Getty Images)
“I know I had the ability to medal like that for a while, but it was kind of figuring out how to manage that ability in races,” she said. “Then last year especially, I kind of learned this concept of feeling like I could control a race without controlling the race. In the past, I felt like I had to control the race by being in front or being in the exact position that I wanted to be in at the time and kind of making these panicked moves.
“Realizing that I could let other people do whatever they want, I have the ability to react to those and make a move at the end and do this and do that. This concept helped me a lot to realize that I didn’t have to waste unnecessary energy in the races, panicking about what my plan is and what I need to do.”
This season promises to be different. For one, the competition format is changing.
In the previous World Cup system, a skater raced in one of two individual events each day. In the new World Tour system, top nations can enter three skaters of its choosing in each distance, opening the door for the best skaters to compete in every race. That could mean stronger fields that more closely resemble the World Championships and Olympics.
The World Tour begins this weekend in Montreal, live on Peacock on Saturday and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET.
Then the circuit heads to Salt Lake City the following weekend. Santos-Griswold will compete on her 30th birthday in front of her largest support section of friends and family since the 2022 Olympic Trials.
“She had a very, very good summer, and she’s skating faster than ever,” U.S. short track coach Stephen Gough said, “but until we get out there and see how things go, it remains a bit of a mystery.”
Santos-Griswold is using this season to set the table for the next one.
“My biggest goal right now is to gain as much experience and confidence to go into the Olympics in Milan,” she said. “Putting myself in dangerous or stressful situations in a race and understanding that I have the ability to make it out of those.”
Santos-Griswold is about halfway through grad school for physical therapy at the University of Utah. She plans to take a gap year for the Olympics, then return and finish in 2027.
More than likely, she will not skate past the 2025-26 season.
“But, I mean, I said that last time and things changed,” she said, “so never say never.”
