The women's 500 m competition in speed skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 13 February, at the National Speed Skating Oval ("Ice Ribbon") in Beijing. Erin Jackson of the United States became the Olympic champion, winning her first Olympic medal. She was also the first female Black athlete to medal in speed skating. Miho Takagi of Japan won the silver medal, and Angelina Golikova, representing the Russian Olympic committee, won bronze, also her first Olympic medal.

The defending champion and the Olympic record holder was Nao Kodaira. The 2018 silver medalist, Lee Sang-hwa, retired from competitions. She was still the world record holder during the Olympics. The bronze medalist, Karolína Erbanová, retired as well. Golikova was the 2021 World Single Distances champion at the 500 m distance. Femke Kok and Olga Fatkulina were the silver and bronze medalist, respectively. Erin Jackson was leading the 2021–22 ISU Speed Skating World Cup at the 500 m distance with eight events completed before the Olympics, followed by Golikova and Kodaira. Golikova skated the season best time, 36.66 in Calgary on 11 December 2021.

Takagi in pair 4 became the early leader with 37.12. Vanessa Herzog in the same pair was 0:16 behind. In pair 13, Golikova skated 37.21, provisionally second time. In pair 14, Jackson improved Takagi's time, taking the lead with one pair to go and shifting Herzog off the podium. The last pair did not alter the medal allocation.

Qualification

A total of 30 entry quotas were available for the event, with a maximum of three athletes per NOC. The first 20 athletes qualified through their performance at the 2021–22 ISU Speed Skating World Cup, while the last ten earned quotas by having the best times among athletes not already qualified. A country could only earn the maximum three spots through the World Cup rankings.

The qualification time for the event (39.50) was released on July 1, 2021, and was unchanged from 2018. Skaters had the time period of July 1, 2021 – January 16, 2022 to achieve qualification times at valid International Skating Union (ISU) events.

Records Prior to this competition, the existing world, Olympic and track records were as follows.

No new records were established during the competition.

Results The races were started at 21:56.Final results

Rank Pair Lane Name Country Time Time behind Notes 14 I Erin Jackson 37.04 TR 4 O Miho Takagi 37.12 +0.08 13 I Angelina Golikova 37.21 +0.17 4 4 I Vanessa Herzog 37.28 +0.24 5 7 O Jutta Leerdam 37.34 +0.30 6 9 I Femke Kok 37.39 +0.35 7 10 O Kim Min-sun 37.60 +0.56 8 11 O Daria Kachanova 37.65 +0.61 9 14 O Kaja Ziomek 37.70 +0.66 10 15 I Olga Fatkulina 37.76 +0.72 11 15 O Andżelika Wójcik 37.78 +0.74 12 7 I Jin Jingzhu 37.88 +0.84 13 8 O Michelle de Jong 37.97 +0.93 14 12 I Tian Ruining 37.982 +0.94 15 10 I Arisa Go 37.983 +0.94 16 5 O Brittany Bowe 38.04 +1.00 17 13 O Nao Kodaira 38.09 +1.05 18 11 I Kimi Goetz 38.25 +1.21 19 12 O Hanna Nifantava 38.30 +1.26 20 6 I Yekaterina Aidova 38.54 +1.50 21 5 I Marsha Hudey 38.79 +1.75 22 9 O Brooklyn McDougall 38.84 +1.80 23 3 O Martine Ripsrud 38.95 +1.91 24 2 O Julie Nistad Samsonsen 39.02 +1.98 25 3 I Nikola Zdráhalová 39.18 +2.14 26 6 O Huang Yu-ting 39.23 +2.19 27 8 I Heather McLean 39.31 +2.27 28 2 I Sandrine Tas 39.37 +2.33 29 1 I Mihaela Hogaş 39.45 +2.41 30 1 O María Victoria Rodríguez 39.70 +2.66

References