There's a lot of Korea left in South Korea.' Women's short track relay with a venom is trying to regain the top spot for the first time in eight years [Milan Olympics]

*This content was translated by AI.

The "world's strongest" Korean women's short track team will challenge for the first gold medal in short track events at the 2026 Milan/Cortina D'Ampezzo Winter Olympics.

The women's national team, in which Choi Min-jeong and Kim Ki-li (Sungnam City Hall), Shim Suk-hee (Seoul City Hall) and Lee So-yeon (Sports Toto) work together, will compete in the women's 3,000m relay final at the Ice Skating Arena in Milan, Italy, at 5 a.m. on the 19th (Korea time).

It is a sport in which South Korea has shown a "super-power" in the past Winter Olympics. The Korean women's short track relay won four consecutive games from Lillehammer in 1994 to the 2006 Turin Games, and also won two consecutive titles at the 2014 Sochi and 2018 Pyeongchang competitions. It is an event in which six gold medals and one silver medal have been harvested from eight previous Olympics.

Ahead of this finals, each player also has a "courage." This is because there is no player at the top of the podium in the individual competition yet. Earlier, Kim Ki-li won a bronze medal in the women's 1,000m final, and Choi Min-jeong failed to advance to the final because she was eliminated in the semifinals of the same event. Although he won a valuable bronze medal, his actual goal was more than that, so he has to shake off the disappointment of 1,000m through this 3,000m relay.

It just so happens that the momentum is steep. In the semifinals held on the 15th, he was the first to cross the finish line with a time of 4:04.729. With four laps to go, Choi Min-jeong retook the lead, and Kim Ki-li, the last runner, widened the gap with explosive speed and played an overwhelming race. South Korea's semi-final record is the fastest, ahead of Canada (4:04.856), the Netherlands (4:06.299) and Italy (4:06.550), which both reached the final together.

South Korea is determined to regain the top position it lost to the Netherlands at the 2022 Beijing Games. If he wins the gold medal in this competition, he will have the first gold medal in a short track event and reclaim the top of the women's 3,000m relay for the first time in eight years. It is also meaningful that if a good performance is achieved in the relay, Kim Ki-li and Choi Min-jeong, who are considered candidates for the gold medal in the women's 1,500m event, scheduled for the 21st, can continue their momentum.

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*This content was translated by AI.