Belgium has finally won its first Winter Olympics gold medal after 74 years as Bart Swings has recorded a victorious win in the men’s mass start speed skating title held in Beijing on Saturday.
After 16 laps of the track, Swings scored 63 points to beat the South Koreans Chung Jae-won who scored 40 points, and Lee Seung-hoon, who scored 20 points.
Swing improved on the silver medal he collected in the same event four years ago in Pyeongchang.
Meanwhile, he said, “From silver to gold, it’s incredible. I always want to raise the bar to the next level, and after silver comes gold.”
He further said, “I knew it was ambitious and a dream to work towards.”
Belgium’s last Winter Olympic title came at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St Moritz when Micheline Lannoy and Pierre Baugniet took gold in pairs skating.
About Bart Swings-
Bart Swings is a Belgian long track speed skater & also an inline speed skater. He is the 2022 Olympic champion on the speed skating mass start. Swings has been regarded for winning Belgium’s first gold medal in 74 years.
His career begin during the first world championship at speed skating event, the 2011 World Single Distance Speed Skating Championship in Inzell, Germany where he finished at 17th place in 5000m.
During the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, he scored a silver medal in the first ever Mass start at the Winter Olympics. In 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, he won the gold in this event. It was Belgium’s second ever gold medal in the history of the Winter Olympics and first for an individual male athlete.
