Speak about a birthday to recollect.
Velocity skater Francesca Lollobrigida set a brand new Olympic report on her thirty fifth birthday on Saturday en path to profitable Italy’s first Olympic gold medal of the 2026 Milan Cortina Video games.
Lollobrigida skated the three,000-meter race in a report 3 minutes, 54.28 seconds, trimming greater than two-and-a-half seconds off the earlier report set by Dutch skater Irene Schouten within the 2022 Beijing Video games.
Lollobrigida completed about two seconds forward of Norway’s Ragne Wiklund, who earned the silver medal. Canada’s Valerie Maltais obtained the bronze in an occasion that’s usually dominated by the Netherlands.
That is truly the primary time the Dutch missed out of the rostrum totally since 2010.
One of the best a part of Lollobrigida’s win could have been the second she shared together with her younger son, Tommaso, who was cheering her on from the stands.
That is Lollobrigida’s fourth Olympics however first gold medal. She gained silver within the 3,000-meter velocity skate and bronze within the ladies’s mass begin occasion 4 years in the past in Beijing.
Gold medallist Francesca Lollobrigida of Italy celebrates together with her son after the victory ceremony. REUTERS
Staff USA initially wasn’t anticipated to be represented within the 3,000-meter race. However Czech skater Martina Sablikova’s withdrawal opened the door for 21-year-old American skater Greta Myers to compete for a medal. Finally, Myers completed in twentieth place.
As of two p.m. ET, Italy leads the medal rely with three. Sweden and Norway every have two medals, and Canada and Switzerland have one medal.
Staff USA remains to be ready for its first medal of this yr’s video games.
