Short track Park Ji-won (left) and Kim Gil-li
Park Ji-won (Seoul City Hall) and Kim Gil-li (Seongnam City Hall), who are aiming to win the overall championship for both men and women in the Short Track World Cup Series, passed the preliminary round of all events on the first day of the last World Cup competition.
Park Ji-won crossed the finish line in 2 minutes 25.181 seconds in Group 9 of the men's 1,500m quarterfinals at the 6th round of the 2023-2024 International Skating Union (ISU) World Cup held in Gdansk, Poland on the 17th (Korean time) and settled into the semifinals in first place.
He passed the first and second qualifying rounds of the men's 1,000m as first place in his group.
Kim Gil-li also passed all the preliminaries with good results.
She placed 3rd in the women's 500m first preliminary round group 5 with a time of 44.032 seconds, but recorded the best time among the 8 third-place athletes in the 8 groups, earning a spot in the quarterfinals.
She also passed the next main event, the women's 1,000m preliminary round 5, with a time of 1 minute 37.515 seconds, taking first place.
It is certain that the two players will win together.
Park Ji-won earned 931 World Cup points from the 1st to 5th World Cup competitions, beating Stephen Dubois (Canada, 822 points) by a wide margin and taking first place.
Gilly Kim is also far ahead of second place Christine Santos-Griswold (USA, 980 points) with 1,115 points.
Since last season, the ISU has been ranking by adding up individual event scores from the 1st to 6th World Cup competitions, and awards a trophy called a Crystal Glove to the top male and female athletes.
The two players are expected to easily win the trophy if there are no surprises.
Park Ji-won is aiming for his second consecutive win following last season.
Meanwhile, in the men's 5,000m relay quarterfinals held on the same day, Park Ji-won won first place in group 2 with a time of 7 minutes 7.220 seconds along with Seo Yi-ra (Hwaseong City Hall), Jang Seong-woo (Korea University), and Kim Tae-seong (Dankook University), earning a ticket to the semi-finals.
Kim Gil-li also participated in Group 1 of the women's 3,000m relay quarterfinals along with Shim Seok-hee (Seoul City Hall), Seo Hwi-min (Korea University), and Park Ji-yoon (Seoul City Hall), and advanced to the semifinals in second place after the United States. 한국야동