Distancing personal life from short-track career pays dividends for Kim Boutin

The banner photo on Kim Boutin’s Twitter account says it all. Taken at PyeongChang 2018, the photo shows the Canadian short track speed skater creating half a heart shape with her hand; the other half is mirrored by Republic of Korea’s Choi Min-Jeong. Both have just received their medals – gold for the home athlete in the 1500m and bronze for the North American – in the second individual event of three for the pair.

The importance of this show of respect becomes clear when looking at the previous race, the 500m, in which Boutin won bronze while Choi was penalised after the two had made contact during the race.

Crashes and contact are par for the course in a sport that requires short trackers to skate side by side round a memorably-sized 111.111m track in an effort to reach the line first, so the incident was nothing unusual. But such was the strength of feeling from some supporters from the host nation, Boutin felt the need to temporarily close her social media accounts due to the online abuse she received.

Boutin was left shaken. However, the day after the race, she and Min-Jeong hugged after bumping into each other in the cafeteria, which buoyed Boutin. "She [Min-Jeong] asked me if I was okay… She really seemed empathetic towards me.”

Despite feeling tearful prior to the second race, Boutin came away with a third-place finish, next to Min-Jeong in first (with People's Republic of China's Li Jinyu in second), enabling the heartfelt moment between the two.

The Canadian, who was at her first Winter Games, rode a rollercoaster of emotions during just over two weeks of action in February 2018, becoming only the fourth Canadian ever (and only the second Canadian woman) to win three medals at a single Olympic Winter Games.