Dutch speedskater Jorien ter Mors makes Winter Olympics history

Sam Cooper
·College football writer
Jorien ter Mors of the Netherlands competes against Kaja Ziomek of Poland, rear, during the women’s 500 meters speedskating race at the Gangneung Oval at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Gangneung, South Korea on Sunday. (AP)
Jorien ter Mors of the Netherlands competes against Kaja Ziomek of Poland, rear, during the women’s 500 meters speedskating race at the Gangneung Oval at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Gangneung, South Korea on Sunday. (AP)

Jorien ter Mors made Winter Olympics history Tuesday.

Ter Mors, a speedskater from the Netherlands, became the first woman to win medals in two different sports at the same Olympics. Ter Mors won the bronze in short-track speedskating 3000-meter relay on Tuesday after taking the gold in long-track last week.

Per the Associated Press, it was the final short-track race of ter Mors’ career (she will shift her focus solely to the long track moving forward). She went out with a bang — a world record — alongside teammates Lara Van Ruijven, Yara Van Kerkhof and Suzanne Schulting.

Ter Mors’ bronze came under the craziest of circumstances. With the Dutch team relegated to the B final of the relay, there were four other teams in the A final to share out the medals.

In the B final, ter Mors raced the last short-track race of her career with such abandon that she helped the Dutch team set a world record. Still, it was all supposed to be for naught. Yet in the A final, both China and Canada were disqualified for impeding, stunningly pushing up the Dutch to bronze.

The bronze medal for the Dutch came on the heels of ter Mors’ 1000-meter gold last week. In that event, the 28-year-old set an Olympic record time of 1:13:56. It was her second individual gold medal. She previously won gold in the 2014 Sochi Games in the 1500m event. She also won gold in the Sochi team pursuits.

All 14 of the Netherlands’ medals in PyeongChang — six gold, five silver and three bronze — have come in speedskating (three in short track).

Ester Ledecka, a skier from the Czech Republic, has a chance to medal in two sports as well. Ledecka, after winning the alpine skiing super-G gold medal last week, will compete in the snowboard parallel giant slalom on Saturday.

Per the AP, the last man to medal in two sports was Finland’s Heikki Hasu, who won gold in cross-country skiing and silver in Nordic combined in the 1952 Oslo Games.

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Sam Cooper is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!

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