Bad day: Sighel falls in the final of the 500. The women’s relay closes fifth

The Sunday of the Olympic short track does not give medals to Italy. Pietro Sighel falls in the final of the 500 meters, while the female relay wins the final B, but fails to grab the podium, because in the final A everything goes smoothly. After the fantastic silver in the mixed relay, Sighel fails the coup. In the final with five contenders (one more than usual due to the readmission of the Canadian Dubois, hindered in the semifinals), the blue starts from the outside lane, so he is never in the leading positions. He mentions a timid recovery at the sound of the bell, but at the penultimate corner he ends up on the ice, closing his test in the big bags.

The results

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Gold to the Hungarian Liu, silver to the Russian Ivliev, bronze to the Canadian Dubois. In the preliminary rounds Sighel had been good at slipping into the right holes and diving to the finish line with the skate forward. In the quarters the son of art (father Roberto was a column of the long tricolor track in the Nineties) attached himself to the Chinese Wu and defended the second position with his teeth. In the semifinal he started from the back, then moved up two laps from the end. At the last corner he was second, a position he kept on the finish line, ahead of the Russian Sitnikov by just one thousandth. So at the age of 22 he won the first individual five-circle final, after the disqualifications in the 1000 and 1500. Unfortunately, however, the outcome was not brilliant.

The relay

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The female quartet fulfills its task perfectly. Arianna Fontana, Martina Valcepina, Arianna Sighel and Martina Valcepina impose themselves in a troubled B final, in which the Russians and the Americans are removed from the rankings. The blue crosses the finish line clearly in front of the Polish. Then the wait for the final A, where this time, unlike Pyeongchang 2018, there are no disqualifications: gold for the Netherlands, silver for Korea, bronze for China, fourth for Canada. Italy is therefore fifth in the overall ranking. Now Arianna Fontana has only one arrow left in her quiver to reach the goal of her eleventh career Olympic medal: the 1500 meters on Wednesday.