Hwang Dae-heon of South Korea celebrates after winning the silver medal in the men's 1,500-meter short track speed skating event at the Winter Olympics at Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan, Feb. 14. Yonhap
MILAN — Short track speed skater Hwang Dae-heon captured the silver medal in the men's 1,500 meters at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics on Saturday for his second consecutive medal in that distance.
Hwang finished in second place behind Jens van 't Wout of the Netherlands in a chaotic, nine-skater final at Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan, four years after winning the gold medal in Beijing. Roberts Kruzbergs of Latvia took the bronze.
This was South Korea's second short track medal here and its fifth medal overall. The country leads the all-time short track medal race with 26 gold medals and 55 medals overall.
Hwang now has four career Olympic medals.
Another South Korean in the final, Shin Dong-min, finished in fourth place.
Both Hwang and Shin started the 13 1/2-lap race in the back of the pack, with William Dandjinou of Canada out in front early. With nine laps to go, Steven Dubois fell and crashed into the padding, leaving a little more space for the rest.
The two South Koreans remained in the back before Hwang started accelerating on the outside with five laps remaining. Three more skaters got wiped out, allowing Hwang to take second place.
Shin slightly bumped into Dandjinou in the late stages, and that gave Hwang some opening to push into a podium position.
Hwang couldn't quite catch van 't Wout at the end but still celebrated a medal in the midst of an injury-plagued season.
Source: Korea Times News
