USA speedster Brittany Bowe’s eyes on the prize ahead of “sweet spot” 1000m

“Gold,” said Brittany Bowe with no hint of hesitation in her voice.

“I’d be lying if I said my goal [in Beijing] was anything less than that,” she added in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com in the build-up to her third Winter Games and speaking about her strongest event – the 1000m race she calls her “sweet spot”.

The 33-year-old Bowe does not do hesitation. Not in anything. Not before a race, waiting for the blast and echo of the starting gun out on the speed skating oval. Or talking about what makes her grueling sport so special. Even when talks turns to the difficulties she’s endured in arriving where she finds herself today – on the cusp of Olympic glory – she’s admirably direct.

Bowe gained a heightened kind of celebrity in the run-up to these Games by giving her Olympic spot to longtime friend – and former childhood inline skating teammate from Ocala, Florida, Erin Jackson who’d fallen uncharacteristically at the U.S. team trials and could have missed the Beijing Games where she was favourite for 500m gold.

That selflessness, and team spirit, which came to Bowe with about as much difficulty as drawing breath, saw her become a symbol for friendship and solidarity – the kind of generous romanticism that sport can offer up every so often. Such was Bowe’s celebrity at that moment, she was invited to help curler John Shuster carry the U.S. flag at the Opening Ceremony – something she calls “the honour of a lifetime.”

But you do get the sense that all of this is secondary to Bowe. And now, with her moment of surprise pre-Games celebrity behind her, she’s right where she wants to be: Poised on the starting line, blades glinting out a threat under the bright lights, a sheet of smooth blue ice stretching out before