Erin Jackson won the United States’ first Olympic gold medal in speed skating since 2010 with a victory in Sunday’s women’s 500-meter race.
Team USA’s Erin Jackson won a brilliant gold in the women’s 500-meter speed skating at the Beijing Olympics on Sunday and became the first Black woman to ever medal in the sport. Jackson,29, went in the penultimate pair, and her time of 26.71 seconds was enough to see her take gold ahead of early leader Takagi Miho. She started quickly, beating Takagi’s first split by 0.02 seconds and she maintained that to end up winning by 0.08 seconds. It was a remarkable performance from Jackson, who is the first American woman to medal in the 500 since Bonnie Blair won her third straight gold in 1992. Jackson is the United States’ first speed skating Olympic gold medalist since Shani Davis won the men’s 1,000 at Vancouver 2010.
