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Kearns • Speedskater Katherine Reutter was only slightly disappointed that flight delays kept her father from arriving from their family home in Illinois in time to see her final race of the day at the U.S. Short-Track Championships at the Utah Olympic Oval on Saturday.
She knew her favorite event was yet to come.
With friends and family members cheering from the stands in their green "Reutter Rooter" T-shirts, the reigning Olympic silver medalist in the 1,000 meters dominated at that distance — as well as the 3,000 — on a final day of the championships Sunday that was marred by a horrifying accident in which Virginia's Landon Hatfield was badly cut by a rival's skate blade.
"That's obviously one of the scariest things that can happen in our sport," Reutter said.
The Kearns resident won her second and third races of the championships — she also won the 1,500 meters — to easily qualify for the last two World Cup races of the season and the World Championships in England, but she and the other skaters had to wait through a delay caused by the accident.
It occurred in the final of the men's B division 1,000, when the 20-year-old Hatfield was struck in the leg and chest by the skate of a rival ahead of him who lost his balance and kicked his leg back too high.
The arena fell deathly quiet as Hatfield skated slowly to the edge of the rink, clutching his leg to stanch the bleeding.
Medical personnel tended to him within seconds — Hatfield's mother was volunteering at the races, and rushed to his side — before taking him to a hospital, where race officials later said he was alert, "cracking jokes" and receiving stitches to close his wounds.
The competition was delayed about 25 minutes while race officials waited for an ambulance to replace the one that transported Hatfield.
While Reutter won her fourth consecutive overall women's title by a wide margin over Lana Gehring, the chase for the men's title was a virtual tie between Simon Cho and Jeff Simon heading into the final event, the 3,000 meters.
It was shaping up as quite a showdown, too, after Simon had beaten Cho in the 1,000 and 1,500, and Cho had beaten Simon in the 500 and won both time trials.
But a four-man crash with six laps remaining sent Cho sliding into the crash pads, allowing Simon to cruise home easily in fourth place behind winner Jonathan Garcia and earn enough points to win his first overall title — though he said he loved the tight competition along the way.
"You only get smarter by playing a smarter opponent," he said.
Reutter, though, had no such drama.
She was in total control of both of her individual races Sunday, showing a newfound ability to get to the front of the pack and stay there. In the past, she said, she tended to either move up from the back of the pack or go to the front and "just kind of hold on for dear life."
"I still have never had to learn how to go to the front and control it," she said, after using a surge to put a full lap on the field in the 3,000. "Not just go up there and know that if I die, at least I die in front, but get up there and don't die and force other people to skate the way I want to skate. That's a new strategy I'm trying to learn."
Better still?
Her father was there to see it.
Sunday's highlights
• Katherine Reutter wins the women's 1,000 and 3,000 meters to capture her fourth straight national title on the last day of the U.S. Short-Track Championships at the Utah Olympic Oval on Sunday, leading a dozen skaters who qualify to race the season's final two World Cup events.
• Lana Gehring, Jessica Smith, Emily Scott, Sarah Chen and Morgan Izykowski earn spots among the women, while Jeff Simon, Simon Cho, Travis Jayner, Anthony Lobello, Jonathan Garcia and Kyle Uyehara earn spots among the men.
• The team that will compete at the World Championships in England has yet to be determined. —
Photo gallery
O For more photos from the final day of the U.S. Short-Track Championship at the Utah Olympic Oval, visit http://www.sltrib.com/sports