Ireen Wust
Netherlands
Speed Skating
Overall Ranks
#4 among Speed Skaters
#3 among Dutch Olympians
#2 among Dutch Speed Skaters
#2 among Female Speed Skaters
#1 among Dutch Female Speed Skaters
Olympic Results
2006
1500m - Bronze
3000m - Gold
2010
1500m - Gold
2014
1000m - Silver
1500m - Silver
3000m - Gold
5000m - Silver
Team Pursuit - Gold
2018
1500m - Gold
3000m - Silver
Team Pursuit - Silver
2022
1500m - Gold
Team Pursuit - Bronze
Total
Events - 20
Gold - 6
Silver - 5
Bronze - 2
Irene Karlijn Wust was born on April 1, 1986 at Goirle, Netherlands, and began skating at age 11. By the time she was 17, she had won silver at the World Junior Championships, and the next year she won the all-around gold. This led to her Olympic debut in 2006, when she was 19 years old.
Her Olympic debut came in the 3000m, which featured the past 3 World Champions and the world record holder, so Wust was an afterthought beforehand. Once she took the ice, though, people took notice, as she set a new track record, more than 7 seconds faster than any of the 18 athletes who had raced already. All of the favorites ran after her, but none was able to match her time, and she ended up taking the gold medal by just over a second, becoming the youngest Dutch Olympic champion ever.
Her next event was the 1000m, and she put herself in bronze medal position with just one pair to go, but she was edged out by Anni Friesinger of Germany in the final race, leaving her in 4th. In the next event, the 1500m, the roles were reversed, with Wust skating in the final pair and knocking Friesinger out of bronze medal position to take her second medal of 2006.
When 2010 came around, her first event was again the 3000m, where she was the defending champion. She was in the final pairing, but didn't run her best race, and ended up in 7th place. Her second event, the 1000m, went about the same, but in the 1500m, she was able to change her luck. She started out as fast as possible, then held on at the end to record the best time of the event so far by over a second, and when none of the 6 remaining skaters was able to match her time, she took home her second gold medal.
Her best Olympic performance came in Sochi in 2014. The 3000m came first, and featured the past 3 Olympic champions, two of whom were the most recent World Champions as well. Defending champion Martina Sablikova of Czechia had the time to beat when Wust took the ice, and Wust started out fast as always, but didn't slow down until the final quarter of the race, and by that time she had built a big enough lead that she was able to still win by more than 1.5 seconds.
In the 1000m, which came next, Zhang Hong of China set the time to beat early, more the 1.5 seconds ahead of any of the earlier racers, and nobody came within a second of her until the final 3 pairs, when Margot Boer and Wust, both Dutch, managed to get somewhat close, but neither was able to surpass the Chinese skater, leaving Wust with a silver.
The 1500m event was very similar. Jorien ter Mors, a fellow Dutchwoman, set a new Olympic record at the halfway point of the event, and the only skater in the second half to get within a second of her was Wust, who finished just more than half a second behind to take another silver medal.
Her next event was the 5000m, which she had not previously entered in the Olympics, and she was paired with Sablikova, the defending champion and overwhelming favorite. Wust started fast as usual, and led the race through 3800m, but then Sablikova made her move and left Wust in the dust, winning by more than 2.5 seconds, though Wust's performance was still good enough for her third straight silver of the games.
The final event of 2014 was the team pursuit, which the Dutch had not done well in during the previous 2 Olympics, but with the top 4 skaters from the 1500m all forming a team, they came in favored to win, and they made sure to leave no doubt, setting a new Olympic record in qualifying, then again in the semifinals, and then beating the record again in the gold medal race, which they won over Poland by more than 7 seconds.
She returned to defend her 3000m medal in 2018, but she had been battling injuries, so she wasn't regarded as the favorite. Carlijn Achtereekte, another Dutch athlete, set the early pace, and Wust started strong as usual, sitting 1.5 seconds ahead of the pace with 2 laps left, but she slowed down considerably toward the end, and ended up losing by 0.08 seconds, leaving her with yet another silver medal.
She was assigned to one of the earliest pairs in the 1000m, and she had the lead by more than a second when she left the ice, but it didn't hold up, as 8 other skaters ran faster, leaving her far behind the eventual winner. In the 1500m, defending champion ter Mors failed to qualify at the Dutch trials, so Wust was one of the favorites, and she again left the ice with a lead of more than a second, but this time her time stood up, with Miho Takagi of Japan making it close in the final pairing, but just falling short by 0.2 seconds to give Wust another gold medal.
The Dutch and Japanese were co-favorites heading into the team pursuit, and the Dutch set a new Olympic record in qualifying, just ahead of Japan. They took it a little easy in the semifinals, and the USA team was nowhere near their quality, earning a spot in the gold medal match against Japan. The race was as good as expected, with the two teams alternating the lead for most of the race, before Japan pulled away in the final laps to win by 1.5 seconds, while the Dutch still beat their earlier Olympic record in the losing effort.
She came back for one final Olympics in 2022. She raced in the 1000m again, which had never been her strongest event, finishing in 6th place. Up next was her best event, the 1500m, where she was the defending champion, and it went almost exactly as it had 4 years earlier, with Wust building up a 1.5 second lead, then watching Takagi get close but fall short again. This made Wust the first athlete in Olympic history to win an individual gold medal in 5 straight Olympics.
She closed out her Olympic career with one final medal, a bronze in the team pursuit, giving her 13 total, the most of any speed skater in Olympic history. Though there were several times where she came up just short of the gold, or failed to medal at all, her longevity and ability to compete and so many distances made her one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time.
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