Olympic short track speed skating gold medalist Suzanne Schulting of the Netherlands will not compete in short track this season due to injury, but does plan to continue competing in long track speed skating.
Schulting, 27, hopes to make the Dutch team in both disciplines for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.
She hasn’t competed in short track since breaking her ankle at last March’s world championships.
She has been able to skate long track this season. She made the Dutch team for two fall World Cups in the sprints. She had a best individual finish of second in a 500m two weeks ago in Beijing.
“With short track, there is a lot of pressure on your ankles, especially in the bends,” she said, according to a translation of a Dutch skating federation release. “With long track skating, that is much less the case, so I was able to continue doing those training sessions.”
Schulting, a six-time Olympic medalist in short track, said her “ultimate dream” is to compete in both short track and long track at the 2026 Olympics.
“That is why I will occasionally participate in short track training this season,” she said, according to the federation. “On the one hand to feel how the ankle is doing and on the other hand to keep in touch with TeamNL Shorttrack. We will review the situation again in the spring.”
Schulting was the top-ranked short track skater on the World Cup four consecutive seasons from 2018-19 to 2022-23.
After South Korean Kim Gil-Li was No. 1 last season, American Kristen Santos-Griswold leads this season’s standings through four of six stops.
Two skaters have competed in short track and long track at the same Olympics — Latvian Haralds Silovs in 2010 and Dutchwoman Jorien ter Mors in 2014 and 2018, each competing in both disciplines on the same day. Ter Mors won a medal in each discipline in 2018.
Italian Arianna Fontana, who owns a record 11 Olympic short track medals, has already said she wants to compete in both short track and long track at a home Olympics in 2026.
