'3rd place → 2nd place → 3rd place → 2nd place 男 short track, 2 consecutive silver medals' [Milan Olympics]

*This content was translated by AI.

The South Korean men's short track team achieved a valuable achievement of two consecutive Winter Olympics silver medals in the men's relay event after a neck-and-neck race with the Netherlands.

The men's relay team, consisting of Lee Joon-seo (Seongnam City Hall), Im Jong-eon (Goyang City Hall), Lee Jung-min (Seongnam City Hall), and Hwang Dae-heon (Gangwon Province Office), ranked second with a time of 6:52.239 in the men's 5,000m relay final of the '2026 Milan·Cortina D'Ampezzo Winter Olympics Short Track' held at the Milan Ice Skating Arena in Italy on the 21st (Korea time). The gap with the Netherlands, which won the gold medal, was only 0 seconds 392.

The game was a fierce hand fight from the beginning. Captain Lee Joon-seo, who was the first runner, skillfully secured the third place and set the stage for a stable race. South Korea saved its strength until the middle of the game and watched the opportunity, rose to second place with Lee Jung-min's explosive speed in the second half of the game, and finally secured the lead, raising expectations for a gold medal.

Im Jong-eon, who took over the baton, did his best to speed up and widen the gap with the Netherlands. However, with eight laps to go, Hwang Dae-heon allowed a pass and gave up the top spot again to the Netherlands. In the process, he was pushed back by a fierce physical fight and faced a crisis in which his ranking fell to third place. He rose from third to second in the last minute and tried to turn the tables on the Netherlands again, but eventually crossed the finish line for the second time.

Although the targeted gold medal was missed, this silver medal is significant in that it is the second consecutive silver medal following the 2022 Beijing Games (Lee Joon-seo, Hwang Dae-heon, Kwak Yoon-ki, and Park Jang-hyuk). He once again announced the power of Korean men's short track to the world by completely shaking off the disappointment of finishing fourth even after reaching the final at the 2018 Pyeongchang competition on his home turf.

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*This content was translated by AI.