Torino Day 3: the end of an exhilarating World cup season

After three and half months and five weekends full of hard work and action, the athletes taking part in the 2018-2019 World cup season in short track speed skating met today for the last day of competition of the fifth and final leg of the season. 

By Carl Savard

Photos by Schaats Foto's and Danny Kim

Valcepina gets another gold on 500m

In another high-octane performance, Italy’s Martina Valcepina won her second medal in two days on 500m. This time, she was battling with Suzanne Schulting from the Netherlands, Elise Christie from Great Britain and Maame Biney from the USA. Valcepina was just too strong for the others this weekend. Schulting looked like she could come back but fell while trying to. Christie finished second and Biney finished third. On the men’s side, Lim Hyo Jun won the gold medal. His second win of the season, added to his other good performances, sent him to first place in the season final ranking. Lim was joined on the podium by Kim Gun Woo (silver) and Yu Songnan. After winning the first three big finals on 500m, China's Wu Dajing didn't skate the rest of the season but was still at the top of the ranking until today.

Boutin and Hwang on top in the 1000m, Dubois adds another medal

Canada had two women in the main final of the 1000m and they would have to fight Korea’s Choi Min Jeong, France’s Véronique Pierron and Hungary Sara Luca Bacskai on their way to get two medals for Canada. After missing the first two legs of the World cup season, Boutin came back strong and will surely be a force to reckon with at the World championships next month. The 24-year-old athlete finished first in this weekend’s 1000m A final. Choi Min Jeong finished second while Alyson Charles came in third. For the men, Koreans finished first and second with Hwang Dae Heon finishing ahead of his teammate Park Ji Won. Canada’s Steven Dubois got himself another individual medal this weekend with this bronze on 1000m.

Relay finals

Even though some of the top countries were not in the main finals of some of the relay events, fans in the stands and at home watching the action on the web were not disappointed. In the mixed relay, Russia, Canada and the USA finished in that order while the Netherlands, Italy and Russia visited the podium on the women’s 3000m relay. Korea had crossed the finish line first but was penalised. In the men’s 5000m A final, Russia won gold, Japan silver and Italy bronze.

The bests of the bests will meet in Bulgaria next month to battle for world champion titles. The 2019 ISU World championships will be held in Sophia from March 8 to 10.

2018-19 season's final rankings / Top-3 in each distance

Women’s 500m: Natalia Maliszewska, Martina Valcepina, Lara van Ruijven

Men’s 500m: Lim Hyo Jun, Wu Dajing, Samuel Girard

Women’s 1000m: Suzanne Schulting, Sophia Prosvirnova, Alyson Charles

Men’s 1000m: Park Ji Won, Hong Kyung Hwan, Liu Shaoang

Women’s 1500m: Suzanne Schulting, Kim Ji Yoo, Choi Min Jeong

Men’s 1500m: Kim Gun Woo, Steven Dubois, Lee June Seo

Mixed relay: Russia, China, Canada

Women’s relay: Russia, Netherlands, Korea

Men’s relay: Hungary, Canada, Japan

To read the article on Day 1, it's HERE

To read the article on Day 2, it's HERE

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