Speed skater Angelina Golikova added another medal to the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) tally at the Beijing Winter Games as she raced to bronze in the women’s 500m final.
A tight race was settled by fine margins as Erin Jackson of the USA took gold with a time of 37.04 seconds, which was just 0.08 seconds ahead of Japan’s Miho Takagi in silver.
Golikova was further back, just 0.17 seconds behind race winner Jackson at the National Speed Skating Oval in the Chinese capital.
For the Moscow-born Golikova it is a first-ever Olympic medal after appearances in Sochi in 2014 and PyeongChang four years ago.
“I have a lot of emotions, there were a lot of strong rivals, the gap was small,” Golikova told Match TV.
“We saw throughout the season that the competition was always tight… Now I am happy with the medal.
“If it was gold, it would be crazy, maybe I would have finished [my career], but now I have more strength and motivation to fight.
“There was a lot of uncertainty during the pandemic whether there will be an Olympic Games or not. There was a chance to win a medal, and I did it,” added Golikova, who is a double European champion and 2021 world single distance champion.
The medal from Golikova is the ROC’s second of the day in speed skating, after Konstantin Ivliev had earlier won silver in the men’s 500m event.
The ROC team stands seventh overall in the Beijing medal table, with four gold, five silver and eight bronze medals.