Short Track Hwang Dae-heon Defeats Lin Xiaojun
Short track Hwang Dae-heon defeats Lin Xiaojun... Winner of the 1,500m World Cup 1st competition
Park Ji-won wins gold in the first men"s 1,000m race... Gilly Kim won two silver medals.
Korean men"s short track star Hwang Dae-heon (Gangwon Provincial Office) won a landslide victory over former national teammate Lin Xiaojun (Chinese/Korean name Lim Hyo-jun) in his first international competition in four years.
Dae-Heon Hwang won the gold medal by crossing the finish line first with a record of 2 minutes 23.666 seconds in the men"s 1,500m final of the first competition of the 2023-2024 season International Skating Union (ISU) World Cup held in Montreal, Canada on the 22nd (Korean time). I walked.
He beat Steindesmoot (Belgium, 2 minutes 23.789 seconds) by 0.123 seconds.
Kim Geon-woo (Sports Toto), who also advanced to the finals, unfortunately missed out on a medal in 4th place.
Hwang Dae-heon, who declared a break after the Beijing Winter Olympics last year and returned the Taegeuk mark for the 2022-2023 season, showed off his rust-free skills by running a "golden run" from the first competition of his return to the World Cup series this season.
The biggest interest in the men"s 1,500m event at this tournament was the confrontation between Hwang Dae-heon and Lin Xiaojun, who had a bad relationship while on the Korean national team.
The two wore the Taegeuk symbol and worked together on the national team, but their relationship soured after an unpleasant incident occurred during training in 2019.
Lin Xiaojun, who received a one-year suspension from the Korea Skating Federation, became a naturalized Chinese citizen and met Hwang Dae-heon at an international competition for the first time in four years.
Daeheon Hwang and Xiaojun Lin finally faced each other in the men"s 1,500m semifinals that day.
In the semifinals, while Lin Xiaojun took the lead early in the race, Hwang Dae-heon looked for an opportunity at the back.
Daeheon Hwang quickly rose to second place with three laps remaining, pushing Lin Xiaojun to third, then immediately increased his speed and rose to the lead.
Hwang Dae-heon, who had accumulated enough strength, widened the gap comfortably and crossed the finish line in 1st place, while Lin Xiaojun lost 2nd place to Russell Felix (Canada) at the last corner and fell to 3rd place, failing to advance to the finals.
Hwang Dae-heon, who defeated Lin Xiaojun in an overwhelming race and advanced to the finals, marked his return to the World Cup series after a year with a gold medal.
In the women"s 1,500m final, Kim Gil-li (Seongnam City Hall) crossed the finish line with a time of 2 minutes 28.012 seconds, 0.149 seconds behind Haner Desmut (Belgium, 2 minutes 27.863 seconds) and took the silver medal.
In the final of the first men"s 1,000m race, Jiwon Park (Seoul City Hall, 1 minute 24.903 seconds), ranked first in the men"s world last year, narrowly beat Canada"s Stizen Dubois (1 minute 24.916 seconds) by 0.013 seconds and won the gold medal.
Lee So-yeon (Sports Toto) and Seo Hwi-min (Korea University), who competed in the finals of the first women"s 1,000m race, took second and third places and won silver and bronze medals, respectively.
With two laps left to the finish line, Soyeon Lee and Hwimin Seo collided with Poland"s Kamila Stormovska, who tried to overtake them, and fell, unfortunately failing to hunt for the gold medal.
In the mixed relay finals, Korea, led by Kim Gil-li, Kim Geon-woo, Seo Yi-ra (Hwaseong City Hall), and Shim Seok-hee (Seoul City Hall), had to be content with a silver medal after being pushed out by China, led by brothers Shandor Liu and Saoang Liu, who changed their nationality from Hungary to China. did.
Kim Gil-li won two silver medals, including the women"s 1,500m and the mixed relay, while Lin Xiaojun played in the Chinese mixed relay team to the semifinals but missed the final race.