The best junior skaters in the world are presently competing in the World junior short track championships at the Maurice-Richard arena in Montreal, Canada.
By Florence Gauthier
Photo: Danny Kim (@dk_st)
During the second day of competition, the skaters all between 14 to 19 years old, were trying to get on the podium in the 1500m and 500m finals. Some of them also had to skate in the semifinals of the relay events.
Korean domination in the 1500m
In the ladies 1500m, the 16 years old korean Seo Whi Min lead the finale A from start to end, which allowed her to win the gold medal. The chinese Li Jinyu was following her closely and finished 2nd with 0.069 seconds behind. After a semi-final that was resumed after a fall by 4 skaters, Courtney Sarault still had strength in her legs and she went on the third step of the podium.
The second semi-final in the men had it’s lot of events. The chinese Wang Pengyu took a one turn advance on the pack in the beginning of the race, but the other skaters almost caught up on him at the end. In the final A, the korean skater Jung Ho Kyoung fell, didn’t get up and the race was stopped. The skater was able to get up by himself, which is a good sign. His compatriot Chang Hyun Woo was the strongest of the race and he won the the honours on the distance. The 2nd and 3rd places were tight, but the chinese Wang Pengyu and the italian Pietro Sighel won silver and bronze respectively.
Maame Biney, the one to beat
During the women's 500m quarter-finals, Maame Biney made a new junior world record. She raced in 43.212 seconds. The record was previously held by Petra Jaszapati with a time of 43.550 since 2017. In her semifinal, she took the lead from the start and qualified for the A final. The same scenario was repeated in the A final. She started strong to win the gold medal. The Dutch Xandra Valzeboer finished second. In this race, the Korean Kim Chae Hyun and the Dutch Georgie Dalrymple had a collision, which made the dutch fall. The Korean was penalized, which allowed Georgie Dalrymple to get on the third step of the podium.
After a 1500m win, Korea's Chang Hyung Woo failed to qualify in the A final. He finished third in his semifinal and also third in the B final. For the final A, the Korean Kim Tae Sung took control of the race from the beginning and did not let go which lead him to finish on top of the standings in the 500m. The Chinese Sun Long followed him all the way and kept his second place until the end. It was very close between the Italian Pietro Sighel and the Russian Konstantin Ivliev. A gap of 0.056 seconds separated them and the Italian is the one who managed to get the bronze medal.
Time for the semi-finals of the relays
For women, the Korean, Italian, Russian and Kazakh teams qualified for the A final. The Canadians had a line change penalty in their race. Following two penalties in the same race, including a mess after a fall, the Polish received a yellow card. In the same race, the Chinese had a penalty in an incident on the Russians.
For the men, the Chinese, Russian, Japanese and Dutch team qualified for the A final. The Japanese established a new junior world record with a time of 4:00:149. The Canadian team finished fourth of their heat and were eliminated. ‘’We stuck with the plan, but we made some errors’’ said Nicolas Perreault after the race. All four guys of the team will still be juniors next season and they said the experience they gained at this year’s world junior championship relay will motivate them for next year.
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