Korean Gold Rush at Winter Games

Korean athletes have been exhibiting stellar performances at the Winter Universiade 2007 in Turin, Italy. Korea won a total of seven medals during the weekend with Lee Sang-hwa (currently attending Hwi Kyung high school and admitted to Korea National Sport University) bringing Korea its second gold medal yesterday in women’s speed skating. Overall, Korea ranked fourth with two golds, five silvers, and two bronzes.

This is a great feat given that short track events, which have been dominated by the country, have not even begun.

At Oval Lingotto, Lee Sang-hwa set a new Universiade record, clocking an overall time of 77.06 seconds for the first and second races on Saturday in the women’s 500-meter speed skating event. She bettered the previous record of 78.08 seconds by 1.02 seconds.

On Friday Lee Kang-seok took a gold medal in the men’s 500-meter race. Lee, who attends Korea National Sport University, added a silver medal in Saturday’s 1,000-meter race, clocking 1:09.89 seconds behind Italy’s Enrico Fabris, a gold medalist at the Turin Winter Olympics in the men’s 1,500 meters, whose record is 1.09.68.

Korea swept medals in the men’s 500-meter race, a competition for sprint speed skating, with Lee Kang-seok coming in first followed by Lee Ki-ho (Dankuk University) and Mo Tae-bum (Jamshil High School, admitted to Korea National Sport University).

This makes Lee the forth Korean speed skater and first male player to win a gold medal in the Universiade. Those who clinched golds in the past are Jeon Sun-ok at Lake Placid in 1972 (1,000 meter event), Yu Sun-hee in Sapporo in 1991 (500 meter), and Chun Hee-joo in Muju in 1997 (1500 meter).

Choi Yong-jik (Korea Ski Association) captured silver in K-95 men’s individual ski jump on Saturday. Korean ski jumpers added another silver the next day, as Choi Yong-jik, Choi Heung-chul (Korea Ski Association) and Kang Chil-gu (Korea National Sport University) scored 684 points behind Australia’s 717. In women’s figure skating, Shin Ye-ji (Gwang Moon high school, admitted to Seoul Women’s University) ended in fourth with 148.24 points.

kimsk@donga.com