Italy's Arianna Fontana positioned to break Olympic short track medal record

No one has more Winter Olympic short track medals than Italy's Arianna Fontana.

She is one of three skaters in the sport's history with eight medals, along with Apollo Ohno of the United States and Viktor Ahn, who represented South Korea and Russia in different Olympics. 

The 31-year-old is set to compete in her fifth Olympics starting this weekend, where she will have several opportunities to earn an all-time record ninth medal.

Her chances include the Mixed Team Relay, Women's 500m, Women's 1000m, Women's 1500m and Women's 3000m relay. 

SEE MORE: How to watch Short Track at the 2022 Winter Olympics on NBC and Peacock

"It’s an incentive, as even though the years are passing I feel better and better," Fontana told Reuters. "We’ll see what happens in Beijing, but the goal remains the same: reach the final ... reach all the finals. Once we’re there, everything is on the table."

Her specialty is the fast-paced 500m. She is the defending gold medalist in the event and owns the top spot in the 2021-2022 World Cup rankings.

SEE MORE: PyeongChang 2018: Arianna Fontana wins 500m gold medal

The Italian is one of three short track skaters who have won medals in four straight Winter Olympics. The other two are Canadians Charles Hamelin, who will compete this year, and Tania Vicent. Fontana won her first, a bronze in the Women's 3000m relay, at 15 years old in 2006. 

The Team Mixed Relay, Women's 500m heats and Men's 1000m heats begin the Olympics short track competition at 6 a.m. ET on Saturday, Feb. 5.

The races will air LIVE on Peacock, the NBC Sports app and on NBCOlympics.com. You can also catch them on USA Network at 2:30 p.m. ET. Visit NBCOlympics.com to see the full short track streaming schedule.

Reuters contributed to this story. 

Fontana's race schedule