Elise Christie has acknowledged that she had little chance of a Winter
Olympics medal after damaging her ankle – but says she refused to pull out
because “my heart held on to that little bit of hope”.
The 27-year-old earned plenty of plaudits for skating while in obvious pain in the 1,000m short track speed-skating heats on Tuesday. But her Olympic hoodoo continued when she was disqualified for skating too aggressively after she initially appeared to have made the quarter-finals.
Responding to questions why she had continued to skate despite her
injury, she replied: “Sometimes your heart needs more time to accept what your brain already knows. I wasn’t ready to let go. With my ankle the way it was, medalling was so unlikely, but my heart held onto that little bit of hope.
She added: “I wanted to inspire people never to give up. I’m sorry it
didn’t end the way we all hoped but I am thankful to every person that’s
taken time out to tell me I’ve inspired them.”
Meanwhile, Stewart Laing, the performance director of British speed skating, insisted that Christie was “robust” enough to bounce back from yet more Olympic failure after her three disqualifications in Sochi.
But he hinted that Christie would work on becoming more tactically flexible
for Beijing 2022 after failing to win a medal in all three of her events in Pyeongchang.
“Elise is hugely powerful and you can see that by the fact that she holds
the 500m world record,” he said. “This is a sport of tactics and overtaking. So for Beijing I would like to see Elise have the ability to race from any position on the track.”
Christie has talked to skeleton and track cycling about switching sports,
but Laing insisted “her heart lies on the ice”.
When it was put to him that Christie should try long track speedskating, where there is far less risk of crashing, Laing said: “There is a good crossover and you just have to look at the Dutch skater Yorien ter Mors who picked up a gold medal in the 1000m on the long track and she is one of the short track members of the Dutch team.”
“But we don’t have a long track in Great Britain. So for us to fully support someone doing it that obviously stretches our resources.”
