Photo: Martin Rulsch via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped. This adapted image is also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Kristen Santos-Griswold has won the Crystal Globe as the best overall skater on the 2024-25 ISU Short Track World Tour. She sealed it at the final round in Milan on Sunday, February 16, 2025 and finished on 1,120 points, 170 clear of the Netherlands' Xandra Velzeboer, with US teammate Corinne Stoddard third.
In Milan she won the 500m and the 1000m and took silver in the 1500m, Viva! reports. She also tops the season's 500m standings, and her season haul runs to four golds, four silvers and a bronze. Milan's Forum Assago will host the short track events at next year's Winter Olympics, so it's a handy place to peak.
It hasn't all been smooth. Crashes not of her making knocked her out of several races this season, and she said on Saturday, speaking to the ISU, that Tilburg the week before had been rough:
Last week [in Tilburg] was hard, really rough, so I don't mind getting some luck. This weekend I wanted to reset, refocus, change my mindset. Really try to do this for myself, go out there and have fun.
Santos-Griswold has never eaten meat. She was raised vegetarian and went fully vegan in 2018, for the animals first. She told Great Vegan Athletes that the performance gains followed: "When I switched to a fully plant-based diet, I also began feeling just overall so much better and began skating better too." Her verdict is blunt: "I fully believe it's possible, if not, more beneficial to compete and succeed as a vegan."
This caps a remarkable run. In December 2023 she became the first American woman to win a World Cup 500m, and last March she became 1000m world champion in Rotterdam.
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