Park Ji-won tops podium at World Short Track Championships
Korean skaters shone at the World Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Yangcheon District, western Seoul over the weekend, with Park Ji-won winning gold in the men’s 1,500 meters and Choi Min-jeong taking silver in the women’s race over the same distance.
Park, who is coming off the back of a dominant International Skating Union (ISU) World Cup 2022-23 season, proved his class again by winning Korea’s first gold in the men’s final of the 1,500 meters on Saturday to take the world title.
Park outskated all of his competitors in the race with six laps to go and never ceded the top spot to finish the race with a time of 2 minutes and 17.792 seconds.
The 26-year-old Korean skater spent the early days of his career in the shadow of Olympic gold medalist Lim Hyo-jun, but he has risen to the forefront of Korean skating after Lim opted to compete for China after being suspended from racing for Korea in 2021 due to a sexual harassment charge.
Lim, who finished first in the final of the 500 meters on the same day, still failed to win gold due to being disqualified for not wearing a transponder on his ankle — a required device that records a player’s speed and location.
Lee June-seo and Hong Kyung-hwan, who also competed in the 500 meters of the semifinals on Saturday, failed to advance to the final.
Lee, who raced in Heat 1 of the 500 meters, came in fifth, finishing with an uninspiring 62.843 seconds after slipping in the middle of the race.
Hong, on the other hand, finished the race in fourth place with a time of 41.839 seconds in Heat 2. He was 0.093 seconds behind third-place Lukasz Kuczynski of Poland.
Over in the women’s 1,500 meters, Choi finished with a time of 2 minutes and 31.448 seconds.
Choi sprinted with three laps to go, but failed to outskate frontrunner and regular podium rival Suzanne Schulting of the Netherlands, ultimately ending the race just 0.099 seconds behind the Dutch skater who took gold.
Kim Gil-li, who raced in Heat 1 of the semifinal of the 1,500 meters, could not reach the final as she finished in sixth place. It was the same for Kim Geon-hee who finished in fourth place in Heat 2.
As of press time Sunday, the finals for the men’s 1,000 meters, women’s 1,000 meters, men’s relay, women’s relay and mixed relay were still due to be raced later in the evening.
BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]