With rousing race, short tracker gives S. Korea 1st gold in Beijing

A day after winning its first medal of Beijing 2022, South Korea finally collected its first gold medal in the Chinese capital Wednesday.

Hwang Dae-heon captured the men's 1,500m short track speed skating title at Capital Indoor Stadium, for South Korea's first gold in Beijing and its first short track medal of any color here.

Hwang narrowly beat Steven Dubios of Canada, 2:09.219 to 2:09.254.

The gold provided a measure of personal redemption for Hwang, who had unexpectedly found himself at the center of officiating controversy here this week. On Monday, Hwang, along with teammate Lee June-seo, were disqualified from the men's 1,000m semifinals on decisions that left many South Korean fans and officials up in arms.

South Korea plans to take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but in the meantime, Hwang kept his focus on the ice and delivered the breakthrough title.

Earlier in the day in short track, Choi Min-jeong and Lee Yu-bin of South Korea advanced to the quarterfinals in the women's 1,000m. The quarterfinals, semifinals and finals in that distance are all set for Friday.

The women's 3,000m relay team qualified for Sunday's final. Choi, as the anchor, dragged the team from third to second place with a late spurt, as South Korea grabbed the last ticket to the final from its semifinal heat.

Canada, the Netherlands and China will also be in the final.

Elsewhere at Beijing 2022 on Wednesday, alpine skier Gim So-hui finished 39th in the women's slalom at Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre in Yanqing District, northwest of Beijing.

Park Je-un ranked 42nd out of 44 competitors in the men's individual Gundersen normal hill/10km cross-country event in Nordic combined at Zhangjiakou National Cross-Country Skiing Centre in Zhangjiakou, about 180 kilometers northwest of Beijing.

In the men's doubles luge event, Park Jin-yong and Cho Jung-myung finished in 12th place with a combined time of 1:58.727 after two runs at Yanqing Sliding Centre.

This was their third Olympics together. They had finished 18th in 2014 and ninth in 2018. (Yonhap)