HARBIN, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) — Olympic champion Gao Tingyu of China set off his second Asian Winter Games (AWG) marketing campaign to a superb begin, successful the lads’s 100m gold on the Speed Skating Oval of the Heilongjiang Ice Training Center on Saturday.
His victory highlighted a golden day for Chinese skaters, with Ning Zhongyan and Han Mei additionally emerged victorious within the males’s and ladies’s 1,500m occasions, respectively.
Gao, a local of Heilongjiang Province, was China’s sole gold medalist in pace skating on the 2017 Asian Winter Games in Sapporo, Japan, the place he received the lads’s 500m race.
Despite fighting accidents throughout this season’s World Cup occasions, Gao set eyes on defending his title. On Saturday, he delivered a dominant efficiency, clocking 9.35 seconds to seize his second AWG title, 0.12 seconds forward of Yevgeniy Koshkin of Kazakhstan.
Kim Jun-ho of South Korea completed third in 9.62 seconds.
“Seeing other skaters achieve good results makes me even more motivated to win this gold medal,” Gao stated.
“It feels totally different to compete in your hometown. The atmosphere was amazing. I could hear the crowd cheering for us,” 27-year-old Gao stated, including that “I could be faster.”
Gao will subsequent compete in males’s 500m and group dash, and he is able to “start from zero.” “I just hope to concentrate on every training session and try to perform my best in every event,” he stated.
Ning, who carried the Chinese nationwide flag throughout Friday’s opening ceremony, eased to victory within the males’s 1,500m in a single minute and 45.85 seconds, adopted by two Japanese skaters Kazuya Yamada and Ryota Kojima who had been 1.70 and a couple of.62 seconds behind.
For Ning, 25, this marked his first AWG and a dream come true.
“This is a small dream come true for me, but I have a bigger one,” stated Ning, who completed fifth on the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games. “I feel I am more mature now, and I hope to make breakthroughs at Milano-Cortina 2026.”
China’s success continued as Han, Yang Binyu and Yin Qi swept the ladies’s 1,500m podium. Yang was main the sphere after skating to 1:58.06 within the sixth pair. Han and Yin, paired within the last group, crossed the road in 1:57.58 and 1:58.09 respectively.
“We are very proud to see three Chinese flags hoisted to the national anthem. I think every one of us did a great job,” stated Han, who talked about the absence of Olympic champion Miho Takagi of Japan made the competitors much less aggressive.
Han will compete in 1,000m, 3,000m, group dash, and group pursuit within the following competitors days, and the 27-year-old feels it is a candy burden.
“I have to admit it’s a little bit tiring for me [to compete in so many events], but on the other hand this also represents the trust in me, which makes me feel happy and encouraged,” she stated.
The pace skating competitions will proceed on Sunday with the ladies’s 500m, males’s 5,000m, and ladies’s group dash occasions.