Nao Kodaira of Japan places second in the Women's 500m with during the ISU World Cup Speed Skating competition at The Olympic Oval on December 10, 2021 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (International Skating Union/Getty/Kyodo)
CALGARY, Canada (Kyodo) -- Japan's Nao Kodaira came second in the women's 500 meters at the speed skating World Cup on Friday, logging 36.81 seconds at the Calgary Olympic Oval for her first sub-37 time over the distance in two seasons.
The 35-year-old 2018 Olympic gold medalist got off to a difficult start to her Olympic season but found her feet in the fourth and final meet of the 2021 World Cup as she bounced back from her sixth- and eighth-place finishes a week ago in Salt Lake City.
"I was skating trying to grasp something in the first 100, 200 meters," said Kodaira, who is fighting back from a groin issue that troubled her last season.
"But I managed to cross with a small sense of feeling that, in the last 300, I was close to working out my usual way of skating," she reflected. "That was a real positive."
Olga Fatkulina of Russia won in 36.72 with her compatriot Angelina Golikova in third in 36.82.
Kodaira, whose place in the Beijing Games in February is all but secured, stated that her aim here was not to react to her placing but return to Japan getting "things to tick, technically," which she did to a good degree.
"There's only one person who can win back-to-back (Olympic) gold medals," she said. "I'm making that my motivation."
In the men's 500, Yuma Murakami clocked 33.89 to finish third and become the third Japanese in history to record a sub-34-second time. Laurent Dubreuil of Canada won in 33.77 followed by Tingyu Gao of China's 33.87.
In the women's 3,000 meters, Miho Takagi logged 3:55:45 and rewrote her own national record, shedding some 1.64 from her previous best as she topped Division B. Her time would have been good enough for third had she raced in the top division.
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