Lee Jun-seo of Korea, right, competes in the men’s 5,000-meter short track relay semifinal at the Milano Ice Skating Arena during the Winter Olympics at Milano, Italy, Monday. Yonhap
MILAN — Lee June-seo, captain of the Korean men's short track speed skating team at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, thinks so much about the upcoming men's relay final that he often dreams about it now.
"I've been skating relays in my dreams lately," Lee said after a training session at Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan on Thursday. "I think I am going to see a lot of familiar moments in the actual race, and so I am really looking forward to it."
Korea will compete in the men's 5,000-meter relay final Friday against the Netherlands, Canada and Italy.
These same four countries battled in the women's 3,000-meter relay final Wednesday night, and Korea emerged with the gold medal ahead of Italy and Canada.
Lee said he learned a great deal by watching that thrilling, action-packed women's final, in which Dutch skater Michelle Velzeboer fell and nearly took down Korea's Choi Min-jeong with her. Choi managed to stay on her feet and regained enough speed to keep Korea in the race, before Kim Gil-li anchored the team to the title.
"I felt the other countries would be really strong, but they all made a mistake during the race," Lee observed. "Our women's team didn't make any mistake, and that's why we had the chance to win the gold. So we on the men's team will try to minimize our mistakes as well."
Without revealing too much, Lee said he and his teammates have devised strategies that can maximize their individual skill sets.
The Korean women had been kept off the top of the podium in Milan until that relay gold medal. The men's team is also without a gold medal at the moment, and Lee believes it is their turn now to go gold.
So far, Rim Jong-un's bronze in the 1,000-meter and Hwang Dae-heon's silver in the 1,500-meter are the only men's short track medals for Korea. The country did not have a finalist in the men's 500-meter.
Source: Korea Times News
