Lee Kyu-Hyuk Finishes 5th in the Men’s 500m

The hope of Korean skating, Lee Kyu-Hyuk (24, Chunchon City Office), just missed his first medal.

Lee recorded 34 seconds 85 in the second race of 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics men’s 500m speed skating, which was held at the Olympic Oval stadium on the 13th. Thus, he was ranked at the 5th position with the total record of 69 seconds 59.

He broke his previous Korean record (34 sec. 84) with 34 seconds 74 on the previous day, but he lost control of the race with 2 false starts in the second race and failed to win a medal.

Lee remarked, "I was feeling good and was confident since I was assigned on the out-course, which I like. But my body felt heavy after two flying-starts."

Also, Choi Jae-Bong (Dankuk Univ.) was ranked 17th with a total of 70 seconds 57 (35 sec. 45, 35 sec. 12), and Park Jae-Man (Dankuk Univ.) and Kim Chul-Su (Korea Physical Education Univ.) were ranked 25th and 33rd, respectively.

U.S.A.’s Casey Fitzrandolph won the gold medal with the final record of 69 seconds 23 (34 sec. 42, 34 sec. 81), beating the 1998 Nagano Olympics champion, Shimizu Hiroyasu (Japan), by 0.03 second.

In the men’s singles luge event on the 13th, Georg Hackl (Germany) won the silver medal, winning 5th straight medals since the 1988 Calgary Olympics. This is the first time in the history of both winter and summer Olympics for a competitor to win 5 consecutive medals.

The honor of the first gold medal in the 2002 Olympics went to Stefania Belmondo (Italy), who did not give up even though her ski pole broke during the women’s cross country 15km event on 10th.

Meanwhile, unusual phenomena of unexpected winners are happening continuously. Fritz Strobl (Austria) won the gold medal in the Alpine Skiing men’s Downhill over World Cup champion Stephan Eberharter (Austria), and world’s 8th ranked Simon Ammann (Switzerland) won the gold medal in the Ski Jumping Individual K90 despite different expectations.

In the Alpine Skiing women’s Downhill event on the 13th, obscure Carole Montillet (France), who has never won a championship in international tournaments, recorded 1 minute 39 seconds 56, winning the top position over the world’s first and second ranked Isolde Kostner (1 min. 40 sec. 01, Italy) and Renate Goetschl (1 min. 40 sec. 39, Austria).

ssoo@donga.com