Schulting and Wu on top in Pyeongchang and two more medals for Canada

Short track speed skating at the Pyeongchang olympic games ended today at the Gangneung ice palace.

By Jackob Savard

Photos by Martin Holtom, Schaats Foto’s and Fiák Blanka (podium photo)

19h00 - Men 500m quarter finals

Wu Dajing established a new world record on 500m in the second heat with a fast time of 39.800. J.R. Celski was holding on to this record since 2012. Seo Yi-ra, Han Tianyu and Liu Shaolin Sándor were  penalized in the quarters.

19h14 - Ladie’s 1000m quarter finals

The Olympic path of Marianne St-Gelais ended in the first 1000m quarter as she didn’t manage to qualify for the semis in a race that was won by her teammate Kim Boutin. Valérie Maltais did a great race and finished ahead of the 500m silver medalist Li Jinyu to advance to the next round.

19h42 - Men 500m semifinals

After a little bump at the start broke one of Samuel Girard’s blade, the race was stopped for security reasons and Girard and Liu Shaolin Sándor had to change their blades before the restart of he race. It was finally Wu Dajing and Girard who were able to qualify for the A final. The Koreans Lim Hyo-jun and Hwang Dae-heon would join Girard and Wu in the main final.

19h51 - Ladie’s 1000m semi finals

Kim Boutin and Arianna Fontana were the firsts to qualify for the A final. Valérie Maltais’s Olympic games ended in this semi as she was penalised. Suzanne Schulting managed a perfect race and she qualified for the A final. Shim Suk-hee and Choi Min-jeong, who was advanced, also qualified.

20h14 - Men 500 final

It was a crazy fast 500m main final as every skaters raced an under 40 seconds 500m with Wu Dajing bringing down is brand new world record to a crazy low 39.584. Hwang Dae-heon and Lim Hyo-jun took silver and bronze. Canadian star Samuel Girard finished in fourth place.

20h26 - Ladies' 1000m final

Suzanne Schulting surprised everyone by winning the A final crossing the finish line ahead of Kim Boutin and Arianna Fontana. It is the first short track speed skating Olympic gold medal ever for a Dutch woman in short track! Kim Boutin took her third medal of the Games with the silver while Arianna Fontana won the bronze on the distance. This is Fontana's eight career olympic medals.

21h00 - Men 5000m relay finals

The finals started with the United States beating Kazakhstan and Japan in the B final. In the main event, it's the Hungarian team consisting of Burjan Csaba, Viktor Knoch, Liu Shaolin Sandor and Liu Shaoang that won the gold. They set a new olympic record of 6:31.971 and beat China and Canada for the highest place on the podium. The Koreans suffered a fall and finished in last place. With this medal, Charles Hamelin joins Marc Gagnon and François-Louis Tremblay as the Canadian short track speed skater with the most career olympic medals in Canada. Pascal Dion won his first ever olympic medal as Samuel Girard and Charle Cournoyer got their second olympic medal with this one on the relay.

That's it for short track in Pyeongchang! The majority of these skaters will meet again at the ISU short track world championships in March in Montréal. Passion/Speed/Skating will be there!

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