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Choi Min-jeong of South Korea poses on the podium during the victory ceremony after winning silver in the women's 1,000m in short track speed skating at the Beijing Winter Olympics at Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing on Friday. (Yonhap) |
BEIJING -- South Korea's third medal of Beijing 2022 came from short track speed skating Friday, with Choi Min-jeong grabbing silver in the women's 1,000m.
She finished just 0.052 second behind the champion, Suzanne Schulting of the Netherlands, in the nail-biting final at Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing.
Choi moved from the back of the pack into second place in late stages of the nine-lap race. She barely avoided colliding with two skaters who got tangled up behind her, Arianna Fontana of Italy and Kristen Santos of the United States. Choi nearly caught Schulting at the line, but the Dutch star edged out the South Korean for her second straight gold in the distance.
South Korea now has one each of gold, silver and bronze medal, with nine days of competition left in China. South Korea's initial goal for Beijing 2022 was to grab one or two gold medals for a top-15 finish. Through Friday, South Korea sat in 16th place in the medal race.
Also on Friday, the women's curling team rallied past Britain 9-7 at the National Aquatics Centre for its first victory of the tournament.
South Korea, the 2018 silver medalist, had opened the round robin play with a 12-7 loss to Canada on Thursday night. There are 10 teams in the women's tournament here. After nine round robin games per team, the top four nations will advance to the semifinals.
Against Britain, South Korea picked up four points in the ninth end to turn a 6-5 deficit into a 9-6 lead. Britain got a point back in the 10th end but ran out of time.
In skeleton, the defending men's gold medalist Yun Sung-bin finished 12th in his title defense at Yanqing National Sliding Centre in Yanqing, northwestern Beijing. Yun posted a combined time of 4:04.9 after four runs over the past two days.
Another South Korean, Jung Seung-gi, ended up in 10th place at 4:03.74 in his Olympic debut. (Yonhap)
