Speed skating at the 2007 Asian Winter Games

Speed skating featured as part of the 2007 Asian Winter Games in the newly constructed Jilin Provincial Speed Skating Rink in Changchun. Ten medal events were contested, with the men's 10,000 metres, a part of the Games since 1986, replaced by 100 metres for both genders. Events were held from 29 January to 1 February.

China won the most gold medals, taking five of the ten on offer, by sweeping the women's events. Wang Fei won two gold medals and one silver medal in the three longest distances, while Wang Beixing two gold medals and a silver medal in the three shortest. Japan won the shortest and the longest distance for men, through Yuya Oikawa and Hiroki Hirako, while Lee Kyu-Hyuk and Lee Kang-Seok of South Korea won the three middle distances.

Medal table

1000 metres

The championship record was bettered already in the fourth pair, by Yu Fengtong, who was not among the top 15 in the World Cup standings. Nevertheless, Yu skated the final lap three seconds slower than the first. Lee Kyu-Hyuk, world No. 2, was quicker over the first 600, but a last lap of 27.60 seconds gained him almost 1.5 seconds on Yu. Lee's pairmate, Choi Jae-Bong, who finished over a second behind, but was still second before the final three pairs.

In the eighth pair, Mun Joon was behind Takaharu Nakajima by a few hundredths of a second, but recovered on the final lap as the Japanese fell back into fourth place, also behind Choi. Three Koreans now topped the standings, and with Japanese sprinters Nagashima and Shimizu unable to skate the final lap below 29 seconds, and China's Gao Xuefeng trailing by 1.6 seconds after 600 metres, they remained on top at the end.

Women's events

100 metres

;Preliminaries

Xing Aihua, winner of the 100 metres at the World Cup meet in Harbin with a world record time of 10.31, was beaten by Wang Beixing in the preliminaries, skating 10.41. Lee Sang-Hwa with a second and third place thus far in the World Cup, placed fourth, while two Koreans, Oh Min-Ji and Lee Bo-Ra were eliminated.

;Semi-finals

The first semi-final was an entirely Chinese affair, with Wang skating 10.39 to easily beat Zhang Shuang and Ren Hui. In the second semi-final, Xing only had 0.06 seconds on Shihomi Shinya, and Sayuri Osuga finished 0.05 seconds behind Lee Sang-Hwa in the third semi-final. All winning times were within 0.02 seconds of each other.

;Final

Xing became the first Asian Games gold medallist, while Wang skated her poorest race of the competition to take silver.

1500 metres

Two Asians were among the top 12 in the World Cup rankings, with Maki Tabata eighth and Wang Fei 12th; however, Wang had beaten Tabata in the first two races, before choosing not to compete in the Moscow event. The two faced off in the final pair, chasing the leading time of 2:01.60 set by Korean Lee Ju-Youn. Both opened quicker than Lee, leading by a second after 700 metres, but Tabata was eventually disqualified and in any case skated a too poor final lap to take a medal. Wang held her lead all the way to the finish, however, taking her second gold medal of the Games. The bronze medal went to Ji Jia, her first Asian 1500 metre medal, after winning bronze on the 5000 metres in the Asian Single Distance Championships in 2005.

3000 metres

China's first gold in speed skating this year was won by Wang Fei, who aged 18 had placed fourth in the 2003 Games. Now, she beat defending champion Maki Tabata, and also skated two seconds below the Asian Games record from 2003. [ [http://result.changchun2007.org/data/en-us/Html/SS005101.HTM Distance Analysis in Pairs - The 6th Asian Winter Games - Speed Skating - Women's 3000m] , from changchun2007.org, retrieved 29 January 2006]

References