MILAN — Antoinette Rijpma-de Jong of the Netherlands won her first Olympic gold, and sixth career medal overall, by finishing first in speedskating's 1,500 meters at the Milan Cortina Winter Games on Friday, delighting a large and loud crowd of orange-clad Dutch fans.
Rijpma-de Jong clocked 1 minute, 54.9 seconds, supported raucously by thousands of her closest friends in the stands. They roared when she was introduced before her heat. And again when the video boards showed her ahead of the pace of the previous leader, silver medalist Ragne Wiklund of Norway. And, most ear-splittingly, when Rijpma-de Jong crossed the line and the number “1” appeared by her name to signify she'd taken the lead.
Her time was was 0.06 faster than Wiklund's. Valerie Maltais of Canada took the bronze, 0.31 behind Rijpma-de Jong.
Each medalist in the 1,500 will leave the Milano Speed Skating Stadium with multiple prizes. Rijpma-de Jong already had a silver from team pursuit; Wiklund had a silver in the 3,000 and bronze in the 5,000; Maltais had a gold in team pursuit and bronze in 3,000.
In all, 2023 1,500 world champion Rijpma-de Jong's Olympic haul now includes one gold, two silvers and three bronzes.
Missing from the field was Dutch star Joy Beune, who won all four 1,500 World Cup races she entered this season but surprisingly didn’t qualify for the distance at her country’s Olympic trials in December, sparking a debate over the way Netherlands selects its speedskating team for the Games.
But the Dutch women still got the gold at this distance, to go with wins by Femke Kok in the 500 and Jutta Leerdam in the 1,000.
American Brittany Bowe, who raced head-to-head against Rijpma-de Jong in the 14th of 15 heats, wound up fourth Friday — the same spot she was in the 1,000 meters and team pursuit in Milan.
Bowe, who turns 38 on Tuesday and had said beforehand this would be her final Olympics, has two Winter Games bronzes — from the 1,000 in 2022 and team pursuit in 2018.
Bowe got engaged during these Olympics to U.S. women's hockey captain Hilary Knight, who scored as her team won a gold medal by beating Canada 2-1 in overtime on Thursday.
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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
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