Speed Skating 2022/Women's 3000 metre

Women's 3000 metre
General information
Sport	Speed Skating 2022
Date	5 February 2022
Competitors	20 athletes
Venue	Beijing National Speed Skating Oval
Previous medalists
Gold	Carlijn Achtereekte
Silver	Ireen Wust
Bronze	Antoinette de Jong
Conditions
Length	3000 metres
Medalists
	Irene Schouten
	Francesca Lollobrigida
	Isabelle Weidemann

The women's 3000 metre of Speed Skating 2022 during the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 5 February 2022 in the Beijing National Speed Skating Oval. With 20 athletes competing, the event was won by Irene Schouten from Netherlands, with Francesca Lollobrigida from Italy taking the silver medal and Isabelle Weidemann from Canada taking bronze.

Format

The competition exists out of ten head-to-head races of 3000 metres. The competitor with the fastest time is the winner.

Preview

Twenty athletes qualified for the event with Irene Schouten as the big favorite for the title. The Dutch speed skater had won every race she had competed in in both the 3000 metres and the 5000 metres, with Isabelle Weidemann, Francesca Lollobrigida, and Ragne Wiklund competing for the remaining places on the podium. Defending Olympic champion and bronze medalist Carlijn Achtereekte and Antoinette de Jong were also featured in the field, as well as potential outsiders Miho Takagi, Natalia Voronina, and Martina Sablikova.

Ragne Wiklund was the youngest athlete in the field at the age of 21, a year younger than home representative Adake Ahenaer, and another year younger than Nadezhda Morozova and Han Mei. Except for Han, the three youngest athletes had not been born yet when veteran Claudia Pechstein competed at her third Olympic Games, though only eight out of 19 competitors had been born when she made her Olympic debut in 1992. The German speed skater was no less than 15 years older than second-oldest competitor and five-time Olympian Martina Sablikova, and another year older than Mia Kilburg, who would also start at her second Olympic Games. Behind Pechstein and Sablikova, Valerie Maltais was due to make her fourth Olympic appearance, though her previous three appearances had all been in short track, with Ivanie Blondin, Francesca Lollobrigida, Miho Takagi, and Antoinette de Jong all due to make their third Olympic Games.

Current Records

Record	Date	Nat.	Name	Time
WR	9 March 2019		Martina Sablikova	3:52.02
OR	10 February 2002		Claudia Pechstein	3:57.70
TR	7 April 2021		Han Mei	4:16.87

Results

Irene Schouten won her second Olympic medal in her second Olympic appearance, after winning bronze in the mass start, and became the third Dutch Olympic champion of the event in a row, after Ireen Wust in 2014 and Carlijn Achtereekte in 2018. Francesca Lollobrigida won her first-ever Olympic medal in three Olympic appearances, after finished 23rd in the 3000 metres in 2014 and 13th in 2014, and Isabelle Weidemann took bronze after finishing 7th in 2018. Martina Sablikova just missed out on the podium after taking gold in 2010 and silver in 2014, repeating her fourth-place performance in 2018, while Ragne Wiklund finished in the top 5 in her Olympic debut.

Result	Athlete	Nationality	Time
	Irene Schouten	Netherlands	3:56.93	OR
	Francesca Lollobrigida	Italy	3:58.06
	Isabelle Weidemann	Canada	3:58.64
4	Martina Sablikova	Czech Republic	4:00.34
5	Ragne Wiklund	Norway	4:01.44
6	Miho Takagi	Japan	4:01.77
7	Carlijn Achtereekte	Netherlands	4:02.21
8	Antoinette de Jong	Netherlands	4:02.37
9	Ayano Sato	Japan	4:03.40
10	Evgeniia Lalenkova	ROC	4:03.42
11	Natalia Voronina	ROC	4:03.84
12	Valerie Maltais	Canada	4:04.27
13	Nadezhda Morozova	Kazakhstan	4:04.97
14	Ivanie Blondin	Canada	4:06.40
15	Han Mei	China	4:07.74
16	Maryna Zuyeva	Belarus	4:08.70
17	Adake Ahenaer	China	4:12.28
18	Nikola Zdrahalova	Czech Republic	4:13.13
19	Mia Kilburg	United States	4:13.42
20	Claudia Pechstein	Germany	4:17.16