18-year-old short track skater leads Korea to victory at Salt Lake City World Cup

Eighteen-year-old Kim Gil-li picked up two gold medals at the Salt Lake City leg of the 2022/23 ISU Short Track Speed Skating World Cup season over the weekend, leading Korea to another strong outing at the second World Cup of the season.

Kim Gil-li celebrates after her team came in first in the women's 3,000-meter relay at the Salt Lake City World Cup short track speed skating event on Sunday. [AP/YONHAP]

Eighteen-year-old Kim Gil-li picked up two gold medals at the Salt Lake City leg of the 2022/23 ISU Short Track Speed Skating World Cup season over the weekend, leading Korea to another strong outing at the second World Cup of the season.

Kim Gil-li finished in first place in the women’s 1,500 meters with a time of two minutes and 26.530 seconds, beating out Anna Seidel of Germany by 0.2 seconds. 2022 Beijing Olympic gold medalist Choi Min-jeong finished third with a time of 2 minutes and 26.899 seconds.

Kim Gil-li was also part of the gold-medal winning women’s 3,000-meter relay team, alongside Kim Geon-hee, Seo Whi-min and Shim Suk-hee. Finishing in a time of four minutes and 4.016 seconds, Korea narrowly beat the World Cup leading Canadian team by 0.1 seconds.

Choi, who sat out the relay, also took silver in the women’s 500 meters, slipping behind Xandra Velzeboer of the Netherlands.

In the men’s events, Park Ji-won took gold in the men’s 1,000 meters with a time of one minute and 25.202 seconds, beating countryman Hong Kyung-hwan by just 0.05 seconds.

Park also won silver in the men’s 1,500 meters, while both Park and Hong, alongside Kim Tae-sung and Lim Yong-jin, took silver in the men’s 5,000-meter relay.

Korea also claimed a bronze medal in the men’s 500 meters, with Lee June-seo finishing with a time of 41.350 seconds. In the mixed relay, Hong, Kim Tae-sung, Lee So-young and Shim also combined to win silver, just 0.03 seconds behind gold-medal winning China.

Korea won a total of three gold, five silver and two bronze medals in Salt Lake City.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]