Over two hundred Short Track skaters from 38 Countries gathered in Bormio, Italy, to compete in the third Bosideng ISU World Cup and first Olympic Qualifying Event.
The Olympic Qualification Event began on Friday afternoon with the men’s 1500 meters distance: Apolo Anton Ohno (USA) captured the gold medal after a tight final. Close on his heels was Ho-Suk Choi (KOR), who took second place, ahead of the Canadian skater Charles Hamelin.
The Ladies’s 1500m distance similarly provided a high level of competition with Korean athletes setting pace. Sun-Yu Jin (KOR) took the gold medal with her teammate Eun-Kyung Choi, in second place. Yang Yang (A), from China, brought home the bronze medal.
On Saturday, in the men’s 500m distance, Hyun-Soo Ahn (KOR) topped the podium after a strong skate, with Eric Bedard (CAN) in a close second and Apolo Anton Ohno (USA) in third place. In the Ladies’ 500m final Chinese skater Meng Wang won the gold medal. Evgenia Radanova (BUL) was in silver position, followed by Kalyna Roberge (CAN) in third place for the bronze.
On Sunday, the last day of races provided more memorable moments. In the Ladies’ 1000m, Sun-Yu Jin, (Korea) had the Bormio ice rink crowd cheering when she broke the existing World Record in a time of 1:30.037. Yang Yang (A) in second place won her second medal in the Bormio Event, followed by the Russian skater, Tatiana Borodulina.
In the men’s 1000m distance Ho-Suk Lee (Korea) took first place followed by teammate Suk-Woo Song and the Chinese skater Ye Li held the third position.
Sun-Yu Jin (Korea) crossed the line first, in the Ladies’ 3000m finals with Meng Wang (CHN) in a close second place. Chun-Sa Byun (Korea) was third. In the Men’s Event Apolo Anton Ohno took the lead, with two Koreans, Ho-Suk Lee and Hyun-Soo Ahn, in the second and third positions.
In the Ladies’and Men’s relay finals Korea won the gold medal in the both races. In the Ladies’ relay Canada was second and Italy got the bronze medal. In the Men’s Relay China took second place ahead of USA in third position.
Sun-Yu Jin (Korea) was the winner in the overall classification with 102 points, followed by the Chinese teammates Meng Wang (China) with 60 points and Yang Yang (A) with 36 points. For the men Apolo Anton Ohno (USA) was the overall leader with 86 points, followed by the Korean skaters Ho-Suk Lee with 76 points and Soo-Hyun Ahn with 52 points.
The next Bosideng ISU World Cup Short Track event will take place next week in The Hague (Netherlands), on November 18-20. 2005.
