[Olympics] Speed Skating Cha Min-gyu Wins Consecutive Silver Medals in Men's 500m (Summary)

Korea's Cha Min-kyu is racing in the men's 500m speed skating event at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics held on the afternoon of the 12th at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing, China. Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Seomideum] Choi Min-gyu (Uijeongbu City Hall) won the silver medal in the men's 500m speed skating at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

On the 12th, Cha Min-gyu recorded 34.39 seconds in the men's 500m speed skating event held at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing, China, securing 2nd place. This marks his second consecutive silver medal following the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

The gold medal in this event went to Gao Tingyu (China), who set an Olympic record of 34.32 seconds. The bronze medal was claimed by Morishige Wataru (Japan) with a time of 34.50 seconds. Kim Jun-ho (Gangwon Provincial Office) finished 6th with a time of 34.54 seconds.

Starting from the outer lane, Cha Min-gyu completed the initial 100m in 9.64 seconds. This was the second fastest time among the skaters up to that point, following Gao Tingyu's 9.42 seconds.

Racing alongside Marek Kania (Poland), Cha Min-gyu completed the remaining 400m section in 24.75 seconds, totaling 34.39 seconds for the 500m.

On the afternoon of the 12th, Cha Min-kyu of Korea, after winning the silver medal by finishing second in the men's 500m speed skating event at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics held at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing, China, is seen holding the Taegeukgi and circling the rink. Photo by Yonhap News

Although slightly short of his personal best of 34.03 seconds, he achieved a valuable result with silver medals in two Olympic Games.

Despite somewhat lackluster performances during the 2021?2022 season, failing to place within the top 5 in four World Cup events, Cha Min-gyu accomplished the feat of winning consecutive Olympic silver medals.

He surprised the skating world with an unexpected silver medal at Pyeongchang in 2018. At that time, the difference from the first-place athlete was only 0.01 seconds. This time, the gap with first-place Gao Tingyu was just 0.07 seconds.

Maintaining second place throughout, the critical moment for Cha Min-gyu’s medal acquisition came with the last competitors, the favorites Laurent Dubreuil (Canada) and Shin Hama Tatsuya (Japan). If either had posted better results, Cha Min-gyu could have dropped to 4th place.

However, due to one false start, their starting speeds were somewhat slower, resulting in Dubreuil finishing 4th and Shin Hama placing 20th, confirming Cha Min-gyu’s silver medal.

With this event, South Korea has recorded 1 gold, 2 silver, and 1 bronze medals.

In speed skating, this is the second medal following Kim Min-seok’s (Seongnam City Hall) bronze in the men’s 1500m on the 8th.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.