Korean Speed Skaters Win World Cup Medals
By Yoon Chul
Staff Reporter
South Korean short tracker Lee Jung-soo grabbed a gold medal in the 1,500-meter event in the fourth ISU World Cup, Sunday (KST).
At Michigan, Lee crossed the finish line first with a time of two minutes 13.595 seconds over veteran skater Ohno Anton (2:13.731) in a close race.
Ohno was .087 faster than Lee in the quarterfinal but the Korean emerged as the fastest in the final.
Sung Si-bak added a bronze in the Korea's weakest event, the 500 meters.
On the women side, high school skater Lee Eun-byul earned bronze in the 1,500 meters, clocking in at 2:22.919 following two Chinese, Zhou Yang and Liu Qiuhong.
The South Korea team will be medal favorites in the finals for the men's and women's 1,000 meters, the men's 5,000-meter relay and the women's 3,000 meter relay, which take place Monday (KST).
Long Track- Heerenveen, Netherlands
Korean skater Lee Kang-seok produced yet another medal, a bronze in the 500-meter long track event in the ISU second World Cup in Heerenveen, the Netherlands, Sunday.
Also, Lee Seung-hoon broke a Korean record in the men's 5,000 meters that had stood for four years.
Lee Kang-seok finished third in the second race of the event, clocking in at 35.13 seconds following Joji Kato of Japan and Jan Smeekens of Netherlands. Lee was just 0.15 seconds behind the winner and was also fourth in the event's first race.
Lee earned 70 World Cup ranking points with the bronze medal and the 24-year-old maintained his lead in the standings with a total of 310 points. Lee won a gold and a silver and the two races of the first World Cup event.
Veteran skater Lee Kyou-hyuk missed the first race in Heerenveen due to a thigh injury and was expected to miss the second as well, but skated anyway, finishing 12th in a time of 35.39. Fellow Korea Mun Joon was just 0.01 seconds behind Lee.
Lee Seung-hoon, who made the move from short track to long track in July, posted the first top 10 finish by a Korean in the 5,000 meters.
Lee finished eighth and set a new Korean record with a time of 6:25.03, beating the old record set by Yeo Sang-yeop of 6:28.49.
Lee earned a promotion to Division A from Division B after finishing fourth in the first World Cup event in Berlin, from Nov. 6 to 8.
"Joining the top 10 in the 5,000 meters is an amazing result," Korea Skating Union vice president Jun Myung-kyu said.
Jun said the time was made even more impressive by the poor ice conditions in Heerenven.
"It is remarkable that he set new record on the bad circumstance. When he races on good quality ice, he could cross the finish line in about 6 minutes 20 seconds," added Jun.