Salt Lake City Day 3: Alyson Charles grabs a gold / Wu and Liu offer quite a show

After a first day of finals full of action yesterday, the crowd gathered at the Utah olympic oval and the avid fans watching the action online were ready for another day of high octane competition today and they weren’t disappointed.

By Carl Savard
Photos by Danny Kim

Wu brings the 500m record down once again
In the men's A final on 500m, Corea's Lim Hyo Jun, Hungary's Liu Shaoang, Kazakhstan's Denis Nikisha and Canada's Charles Hamelin had the difficult task of trying to decipher the Chinese enigma that is Wu Dajing. Well folks, we will have to wait. Wu brought down the world record he had done during the Pyeongchang olympic games closing the distance today in 39,505 seconds. Lim and Liu both skated the distance in less than forty seconds to finish second and third in that order.

On the women's side, Poland's Natalia Maliszewska won her second gold medal on the distance this season, beating 500m specialist Fan Kexin (bronze) and winning a neck and neck battle against Suzanne Schulting (silver) preventing the Dutch star to win a fourth gold medal in four visits to an A final this season.

Fauconnet offers another medal to team France
After Véronique Pierron in Calgary last week, Thibaut Fauconnet offered France another medal on 1000m this season. The thirty-three-year-old Frenchman goes home with a silver medal. Corea's Hong Kyung Hwan wins gold while Russia's Dennis Ayrapetyan gets the bronze.


On the women's side, Canada's Alyson Charles gets herself the first gold medal of her young career on the World cup circuit finishing ahead of Germany's Anna Seidel (silver) and Corea's Noh Ah Rum (bronze).

Liu Shaolin Sandor king of relay action

In the mixed relay, China, France, Hungary and the Netherlands were meeting in the main final. With two laps to go and China out of the picture after a fall, fans were on the edge of their seat to watch Liu Shaolin Sandor and Sjinkie Knegt face each other after the last exchange. Knegt and his Dutch teammates had to settle for silver this time because Liu was able to beat Knegt at his own game with a stretched leg at the finish line to get the gold. Team France wins the bronze.

In the men's 5000m relay, Liu Shaolin Sandor continued on his path of leading the charge for team Hungary. The young man was able to resist the attack of China's rocket Wu Dajing to help Hungary win another gold medal in a relay event. Team Russia finishes third.

The women's 3000m relay event was won by Corea who started slow before showing their true colours in the last seven laps. Russia finished in scond place while Japan finished third.

Athletes will now fly back home for a month to get some rest, readjust and prepare for the third leg of the World cup season that will take place in Almaty, Kazakhstan on December 7th through the 9th.

For our Day 1 recap, click HERE
For our Day 2 recap, click HERE

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