Canada's Courtney Sarault skates to Olympic short track bronze in women's 500 metres

Speed skater Courtney Sarault earned Canada's seventh medal of the Milano-Cortina Olympics, collecting short track bronze in the women's 500 metres on Thursday.

Fourth to start the final lap, the Moncton, N.B., native passed Selma Poutsma and was quicker than her Dutch opponent to position her skate over the finish line in 42.427 seconds.

"It's not over till it's over," Sarault said when asked by CBC Sports' Devin Heroux about her comeback effort. "I wasn't able to turn as well as I wanted on the inside [lane]. I'm known to be a fighter and I wasn't going to give up.

"If it wasn't working on the inside, I was going to try to [get in bronze position] on the outside, and that's what I did. I left everything on the ice."

"Courtney Sarault is one of the grittiest skaters and you saw that grit in the final half lap, digging so deep," added CBC Sports analyst Michael Gilday.

Previously, the 500 wasn't Sarault's strength but told her coach she wanted to improve in the distance and went to work last summer.

Canada's Courtney Sarault storms to short track 500m bronze

It's the second medal of the Olympics for the 25-year-old, who helped Canada to silver in the mixed team relay event on Monday. Sarault is also the first Canadian outside Quebec to win an individual Olympic short track medal for Canada.

"I hope this inspires New Brunswickers or anyone from a smaller province," said Sarault, who won the Crystal Globe as World Tour overall season champion and finished second in the 500 standings.

Xandra Velzeboer captured gold on Thursday in 41.609 a short time after clocking an Olympic-record 41.853 in the quarterfinals and before setting the new world mark of 41.399 in the semis at Milano Ice Skating Arena.

The 24-year-old added