[Yonhap News Photo]
SEOUL, Feb. 20 (Aju News) -- At the Gangneung Oval, the speed skating venue for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, South Korean fans have witnessed two new young stars were born in a week.
Cha Min-kyu clocked 34.42 in the men's 500m speed skating finals on Monday to capture silver, just 0.01 second behind winner Havard Lorentzen. He became the third South Korean Olympic medalist in men's 500m speed skating, following Lee Kang-seok winning bronze at Torino 2006 and Mo Tae-bum taking gold at Vancouver 2010.
The 24-year old sprinter has been out of media focus until the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics as his 2017-2018 season was not fast enough to contend the title in the sprint event. But his coaches have believed him that he would be a dark horse at his first Olympics, citing Cha's lap time was getting faster in the leadup to Pyeongchang.
He won a silver medal in the Speed Skating World Cup competition in December last year with his personal best of 34.31, edged 0.001 seconds by Alex Boisvert-Lacroix of Canada. At the Pyeongchang Olympics 500m race, he repeated the silver-medal finish, tying the 16-year old Olympic record. This time, he was 0.01 second behind the gold medalist.
His race was amazing enough to fill the Oval with cheers and shouts of home fans, who was pleased with a new skating star. "I was surprised that my Olympic record was broken by Lorentzen right after my race," he said. "That is big to me. But I'm still satisfied with the second-place finish. My original goal was to get into the podium."
(Yonhap)
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