Kimi Goetz completes breakthrough year with first speed skating World Cup win

Kimi Goetz completed a year of speed skating firsts by earning her maiden individual World Cup win on Sunday.

Goetz won a 1000m in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland in 1 minute, 16.00 seconds. She edged reigning Olympic champion Miho Takagi of Japan by 18 hundredths and reigning world champion, countrywoman Brittany Bowe, by 43 hundredths.

Goetz, 28, prevailed one day before the first anniversary of her long-awaited Olympic debut.

She placed seventh in the 1000m and 18th in the 500m at the 2022 Winter Games, then a month later picked up her first World Cup podium.

This season, Goetz picked up three more podiums before reaching the top step for the first time on Sunday. She is the lone U.S. woman to win an individual World Cup race this season.

The world championships are next month in the Netherlands.

Goetz first bid to make the Olympics in short track, coming close at the 2014 trials. She then fell during warm-up on the first day of trials in 2018, sustained a concussion and then switched to long track in August 2018 after a back injury flared up.

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Mikaela Shiffrin, Federica Brignone and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde are among nearly 200 athletes from multiple disciplines who have signed a letter addressed to the International Ski and Snowboard Federation demanding action over climate change.

The letter was delivered during the world Alpine skiing championships after warm weather and a lack of snow wiped out nearly a month of racing at the start of this season, with preseason training on melting European glaciers heading toward extinction and the impact of climate change on the schedule being seen even in January.

“It’s about time to address a really important topic,” Kilde said after