Korea win 14 medals at first World Cup of short track season

Park Ji-won celebrates Korea’s victory in the men’s 5,000-meter relay race at the ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating event in Montreal on Sunday. [AP/YONHAP]

Teams from Canada, Korea and Kazakhstan hold up their medals following the men’s 5000-metre relay race at the ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating event in Montreal on Sunday. [AP/YONHAP]

 
Korea kicked off the 2022-23 International Skating Union (ISU) World Cup Short Track Speed Skating season with three gold medals in Montreal over the weekend.  
 
The first World Cup of the winter ran from Friday to Sunday with Korea racking up a total of three gold, six silver and five bronze medals.  
 
Park Ji-won was behind all three gold medals, winning the men’s 1500-meter race with a time of 2 minutes and 14.152 seconds, then going on to win the 5000-meter men’s relay gold medal alongside countrymen Hong Kyung-hwan, Lee June-seo and Lim Yong-jin.
 
Park also competed in the mixed 2000-meter relay heats alongside Hong, Lee So-youn and Shim Suk-hee where Korea had topped their group. Korea’s Hong, Kim Geon-hee, Lim and Shim went on to win the final race with a time of 2:39.586.  
 

Shim Suk-hee, left, takes a turn ahead of Corinne Stoddard of the United States, during the 1000-meter semifinal race at the ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating event in Montreal on Saturday. [AP/YONHAP]

From right: Shim Suk-hee, Xandra Velzeboer of the Netherlands and Natalia Maliszewska of Poland hold up their medals following the 500-meter final at the ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating event in Montreal on Sunday. [AP/YONHAP]

 
Short track speed skater Shim won three medals in Montreal, taking the women’s 1000-meter silver medal, the 500-meter bronze and the team gold medal in the mixed 2000-meter relay.  
 
Shim qualified for the national short track team in May after finishing second at the KB Financial Group ISU World Short Track Championships.
 

Shim was temporarily banned last year when text messages that showed her insulting her teammates during the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics were made public. Former national team coach Cho Jae-beom, who was behind the release of the messages, is currently in prison for sexually and physically assaulting Shim, and the text messages also sparked an investigation into whether Shim was involved in race fixing, although she has subsequently been cleared.
 
The alleged race fixing accusations date back to a collision between Shim and Choi Min-jeong during the women’s 1000-meter final at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, when the two fell while turning the final corner. After a video review, Shim was disqualified and Choi missed out on a medal, falling to fourth.
 
At Montreal, Choi won one silver medal in the second 1000-meter race. Choi did not compete in the women’s 3000-meter relay nor the 2000-meter mixed relay.

BY YUN SO-HYANG [yun.sohyang@joongang.co.kr]