Highly exciting Day 3 in Budapest!

The top skaters had a rendez-vous with the firsts finals of the new season today in Hungary and both the women’s and men’s side of the competition was packed with action.

Text by Carl Savard
Photos from Martin Holtom

From the get go, Valérie Maltais and Kim Boutin from Canada were very solid in the first semi-final finishing first and second. Korean skaters Shim Suk Hee and Choi Min Jeong offered the same type of performances in their heat joining the canadian skaters in the A final. Great-Brittain's pride Elise Christie and Australia's Deanna Lockett would complete the top six. In the A final Choi Min Jeong finishes first in front of Boutin and Lockett. Maltais who was skating an amazing race saw her chances vanished when she was pushed by Shim Suk Hee. The Korean was penalised on the move. In the B final, Kim A Lang from Korea finished first, Canada's Jamie McDonald second and Hungary's Petra Jaszapati third.

A lot of action in one of the men's semi-finals on 1500m as the heat was composed of current olympic champion on the distance Charles Hamelin, overall 2017 world champion Seo Yi Ra, world record holder on the distance Sjinkie Knegt and hometown hero Liu Shaolin Sándor. At the end, Liu and Knegt got their ticket for the A final finishing first and second, Canada’s Hamelin and Cournoyer were both penalised in this race and Korea’s Seo Yi Ra and China’s Shi Jingnan were advanced to the big final. That A final was eventually won by Lim Hyo Jun with Hwang Dae Heon finishing second and Sjinkie Knegt of the Netherlands finishing third. Samuel Girard won the B final with Chinese Han Tianyu finishing second and Sébastien Lepape from France finishing third

On the women’s side of the 500m competition, Choi Min Jeong finishes on top while Italian superstar Arianna Fontana finishes second. Shim Suk Hee completes the podium winning the bronze. Marianne St-Gelais who finished second overall on the distance in last year's World championship gets fourth place. On the men’s side, the always spectacular Liu Shaolin Sándor gets the gold medal while Lim Hyo Jun and Hwang Dae Heon gets silver and bronze in front of Chinese rocket Wu Dajing. Canada's Samuel Girard wins his second B final of the day beating Dylan Hoogerwerf from the Netherlands and Abzal Azhgaliyev from Kazakhstan.

Canada, China, Korea and Russia will meet in the women's relay A final tomorrow, leaving the strong team from Netherlands out of the top final following a third penalty to Suzanne Schulting in this competition. On the men’s side, it took the referees long minutes to take a decision following a hard collision between Canada’s Charles Hamelin and Hungary’s Liu Shaoang. Hamelin who had just passed the relay to his teammate, took one step inside while at the same moment Shaoang who had just received his relay took a step outside trying to use his normal turning line. They crashed into each other causing a fall to the Hungarian skater. Referees saw it as a race incident not worthy of a penalty to the great disapointtment of the Hungarian crowd present at the Bok Hall in Budapest. Canada will fight Japan, Korea and China in the A final tomorrow while Hungary will be in the B final with Russia, Kazakhstan and the United States.