By Hritika Sharma and Julien Pretot
BEIJING (Reuters) -Liu Shaoang won the short track speed skating men’s 500 metres gold medal at the Beijing Olympics to give Hungary its first individual title at a Winter Games on Sunday.
Liu, who had already claimed bronze in the mixed team relay and the 1,000m, led a clean race from start to finish to beat Konstantin Ivliev of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) after the other main favourites failed to make it to the final.
Canada’s Steven Dubois claimed the bronze, his second medal here after finishing second in the 1,500 metres.
Hungary’s only other gold medal at a Winter Olympics came in 2018, when they won the men’s 5,000 metres relay in short track speed skating. The country now has 10 Winter Games medals.
Defending champion Wu Dajing was the top favourite at the Capital Indoor Stadium, but the Chinese was knocked out in the semi-finals at the end of a race where he was barely in the mix.
There were also two upsets in the quarter-finals as China’s Ren Ziwei, the 1,000m champion here, and twice Olympic medallist Liu Shaolin, Liu Shaoang’s brother, were knocked out.
It was a close shave for Hwang Dae-heon, who went through his quarter-final race after a photo finish decision, but the South Korean crashed out of his semi-final.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot and Hritika Sharma; Editing by Ken Ferris)
