Arianna Fontana skated swiftly into legend. On the opening evening of individual short track finals at the Milano Cortina 2026 Games, two days after leading Italy’s mixed relay to gold, the 35-year-old from Valtellina secured silver in the women’s 500 metres, a distance in which she now boasts five consecutive Olympic podiums following bronze at Vancouver 2010, silver at Sochi 2014 and golds at PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022.

For the Italian champion, however, this was above all her 13th career Olympic medal (seventh individual), the one that allowed her to take another step into Italian sporting history by equalling the record of fencer Edoardo Mangiarotti, until tonight the sole holder of the title of Italy’s most decorated athlete of all time (six golds, five silvers and two bronzes), including Summer Games. The Italia Team also celebrated its 17th medal of these Games (six golds, three silvers and eight bronzes), matching the tally achieved four years ago at Beijing 2022, Italy’s second most prolific Winter Olympic campaign.

Fontana (photo Claudio Scaccini/CONI), runner-up in her fourth heat, pushed hard from the start in both the first quarter-final and the first semi-final, finishing behind Dutch skater Xandra Velzeboer on both occasions, the latter first setting an Olympic record (41.583) and then a world record (41.399). The script remained unchanged in the A final, with the Italian veteran (42.294) initially glued to the line of Velzeboer (gold in 41.609), before skilfully fending off late attacks from Canada’s Courtney Sarault (42.427) and fellow Dutch skater Selma Poutsma (42.491), who had to settle for bronze and fourth place respectively. The top five was completed by another North American, Kim Boutin (fifth in 44.347), while Chiara Betti, the other Italian entered over the distance, was eliminated in the quarter-finals.

All three Italian skaters in the men’s 1,000 metres were also eliminated at the quarter-final stage: Thomas Nadalini, Luca Spechenhauser and Pietro Sighel. Particular regret surrounded the latter, winner of his heat but subsequently disqualified by the race referee for an irregular move against Poland’s Michal Niewinski, who later fell following contact with the skates of the Trentino star. (agc)