Suzanne Schulting: New beginnings for Beijing 2022 short track star as World Cup season starts in Montreal 

No athlete from the Netherlands had ever won a gold medal in short track speed skating until 2018 when a 20-year-old Suzanne Schulting burst into the global consciousness with victory in the 1000m. Four years later, she followed it up with a stunning Beijing 2022 campaign, in which she retained her 1000m title and added a third gold of her career in the 3000m relay.

Schulting was in scintillating form in People's Republic of China, breaking the world and Olympic records in the quarter-finals of the 1000m and the Olympic record in the heats of the 500m, an event in which she ended with silver. She also completed the medal set, bringing home a bronze medal in the 1500m to stake her claim as one of the - if not the - greatest short track speed skaters in the world today.

Of course, Schulting’s success has not been limited to the Olympics. She is a two-time overall World Champion (2019, 2021) and has three overall European Champion titles to her name (2019, 2020, 2021).

And behind such great achievements lies a fiery ambition to continue to improve. In 2021, the now 25-year-old spoke about how her first Olympic gold saw her eager to push on for more.

"After I became an Olympic champion, I was like ‘Okay, now I have to prove to the world, and to myself, that I’m also able to win more.'” she told Olympics.com. "I was really motivated to show everybody that I was also able to become European champion and world champion and get those World Cup titles. When you get a little taste of it, or you feel how it is to win the gold, you want more and more and more, and you’re addicted to it."

But as the new World Cup season is set to begin in Montreal from 28-30 October, the Olympic champion faces new challenges that have the potential to test her like never before.

New coach, new training regime, new challenges

The 2022 season didn’t all go strictly to plan for Schulting, who missed out on the World Short Track Speed Skating Championships in April after testing positive for COVID-19.

"Mentally, I'm broken," she revealed at the time on Instagram."It is and was a long season. I reloaded myself and I felt so ready to defend my 5 titles.

"I did everything in my power to stay negative, but unfortunately it didn't work out.”

But another challenge has been even more significant in her progression as an athlete over the past months, with a change in the coaching setup of the Netherlands’ national team forcing her to overhaul the training regime that has brought her so much success in the past years.

Jeroen Otter, who coached the Netherlands team for 12 years, has taken a sabbatical from the sport and had been replaced by three-time Niels Kerstholt at the helm.

It was a development that at first caused Schulting to miss the variety of training she was used to, as Kerstholt opted to focus on repetitions and patterns in his sessions.

“There was no surprise in it, it became too monotonous, too boring, I was bored,” she said of her new setup. “That was mentally hard for me. Sometimes I started crying on the ice out of nowhere.”

However, getting closer to the new season, Schulting has expressed that the new coaching methods are beginning to pay dividends as she looks to continue adding more trophies to her cabinet over the coming months.

Further tests ahead as season begins in earnest in Montreal

Schulting has endured a frustrating start to the new season. She was in line to compete in the Dutch Open in early October, but a sinus infection ruled her out of the meet. The Montreal World Cup will therefore be her first real post-Beijing test, and she will compete in both the 1000m and 1500m in Montreal, two distances she has excelled in over the past years.

Montreal will be followed by meets in Salt Lake City (4-6 November) and Almaty (9-10 December) before the year concludes with a second consecutive meet in Almaty (16-18 December).

By the time of the 2023 season closers in Dresden (3-5 February) and Dordrecht (10-12 February) short track fans should have a good idea of how the new training setup is working for Schulting as she aims for consecutive overall World Champion titles.

Perhaps more telling will be her levels of performance in the European and World Championships that both take place in 2023 in Poland and Republic of Korea. 

But for an Olympic champion with ambitions to go even further, battling through the new challenges will be essential in her quest to earn even more Olympic honours at Paris 2024.