[BEIJING OLYMPICS] Short track stars look to put disappointing relay behind for individual races

Short track speed skaters Choi Min-jeong and Hwang Dae-heon will try to shake off disappointments from an early relay race as the two South Korean stars chase individual medals at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Monday.

Choi will be competing in the women's 500m, starting with the quarterfinals and, if she keeps advancing, in the final at Capital Indoor Stadium. Hwang and two other South Koreans, Park Jang-hyuk and Lee June-seo, will be in the quarterfinals in the men's 1,000m, with the final scheduled as the last event of Monday.

Choi easily won her heat on Saturday. Hwang set an Olympic record with 1:23.042 in his heat.

The top two finishers in each race of the quarterfinals will reach the semifinals. Then from the semis, the top two skaters in each of the two races will make up Final A, where medals will be determined. The bottom two from the two races will fall to Final B.

Choi and Hwang were part of the mixed relay team that crashed out of the quarterfinals on Saturday. Park, another member of the race, fell with three laps to go in the 18-lap competition, as South Korea didn't even sniff a medal in the inaugural event.

Also on Monday, Aileen Frisch will open her women's singles luge competition with the first two of four runs at Yanqing National Sliding Centre in Yanqing District, about 70 kilometers northwest from central Beijing. The German-born luger became a naturalized Korean in December 2016, and this is her second Olympics wearing the Korean colors.

Three years removed from career-threatening injuries, Frisch announced earlier this month that Beijing 2022 will be her final Olympics. (Yonhap)