![]() ![]() The 33-year-old Johaug, a 14-time world champion and three-time Olympic medalist, left the field behind after the first half of the race, which is skied half in the “classical” up-and-down skiing style and half in the less-regimented “skating” style. Therese Johaug of Norway won the first gold medal of the Beijing Games on Saturday, dominating the 15-kilometer skiathlon after opening a commanding lead midway through the race that determines the world’s best all-around skier. Therese Johaug of Norway after winning the 15-kilometer women’s skiathlon cross-country race at the National Cross-Country Center in Zhangjiakou. “We’ve gone through so much in the past four years, and then the dream came true on the first day.”Īll the members of the Chinese team come from Heilongjiang, the northeast province near Russia and Korea that endures freezing winters. “This event really helped work off some anger,” said Wu, the member of the victorious Chinese team. Short-track speedskating has been its best winter sport in recent years, accounting for three of the country’s nine medals in 2018 and six of its nine medals in 2014. With the gold medal, China has already matched its haul of first-place finishes from the 2018 Winter Olympics. “Congratulations, Team China! You’re the best!” said The Global Times, a popular nationalist newspaper. Excitement quickly spread across Chinese social media, drawing elated comments. Only one athlete from each country is on the ice at a time, skating a few laps before physically pushing a teammate to initiate the exchange.Įven before China’s victory was official, its news media was reporting that the country had won its first gold medal for these Games. ![]() The mixed team relay involves four skaters from each nation, two men and two women, racing 2,000 meters over 18 laps. Italy, left, took silver and Hungary finished with bronze. It was the first medal of the Beijing Olympics for the host country. “In the coming events, we won’t give up for one moment, not for one second. When you’re standing on that competition field, at that moment, there are no excuses, and you go all out,” she said. “I don’t care about what I’ve been through in the past - the pain, the injuries. “I feel that I’ve waited for this Olympic gold medal for too long,” Fan Kexin, a member of the Chinese team whose previous quests for a gold ended in disappointment, told journalists after the win. Wu Dajing struck his right skate across the finish line two-hundredths of a second ahead of a lunging Pietro Sighel from Italy as several hundred Chinese spectators cheered wildly, ignoring an edict not to cheer to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus. With a flash of a skate, China won its first medal of the Beijing Winter Olympics on Saturday, which was also the first gold medal in a new Olympic event: the short-track speedskating mixed-gender team relay. China won a new mixed-gender relay event in short-track speedskating. ![]()
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