Rim Jong-un of South Korea competes in the semifinals of the men's 1,000-meter short track speed skating event at the Winter Olympics at Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan, Thursday. Yonhap
MILAN — Rim Jong-un took the bronze medal in the men's 1,000-meter short track speed skating event at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics on Thursday, earning South Korea's first medal at these games.
Rim, 18, finished in third place behind Jens van 't Wout of the Netherlands and Sun Long of China at Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan, giving South Korea its 54th short track medal.
Rim started the nine-lap race in the back of the pack, biding his time for a push, while the others kept jostling for position in front of him. Rim found himself still in last place among the five finalists with two laps left. But then he made a late push on the outside on the final corner and stuck out his blade in a close finish at the line.
Van 't Wout clocked 1:24.537, and Sun finished in 1:24.565. Rim's time was 1:24.611, with William Dandjinou of Canada, the heavy gold medal favorite who spent most of the race in first place, clocking 1:24.671.
Rim was the only South Korean to skate in a final on Thursday. In the men's 1,000m, Hwang Dae-heon was penalized in the quarterfinals while Shin Dong-min was gone in the semifinals. In the women's 500m, Kim Gil-li and Lee So-yeon failed to get out of the quarterfinals, and Choi Min-jeong took the exit in the semifinals.
Source: Korea Times News
