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Speed skaters set for 1st action in Milan with 1,000-meter race

Published: 08 Feb. 2026, 12:33

Speed skater Kim Min-sun trains at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium in Italy on Feb. 5. [YONHAP]

A pair of Korean speed skaters will see their first action in Milan on Monday.

Kim Min-sun and Lee Na-hyun will both compete in the women's 1,000 meters at Milano Speed Skating Stadium in northern Italy, starting at 5:30 p.m. Monday.

The 500-meter is the main event for both skaters, but in the 1,000-meter, they will first get to test their mettle against many of the same skaters who will also compete in the shorter event later in the Milan-Cortina Games.

For this International Skating Union Speed Skating World Cup season, Lee ranked 12th overall with 132 points, while Kim finished 18th with 108 points.

Lee established her new personal-best time of 1:13.92 at the season's first World Cup stop in Salt Lake City in November. Then at her fourth and final World Cup race in December in Hamar, Norway, Lee finished a season-high fifth with a time of 1:15.99.

Speed skater Lee Na-hyun trains at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium in Italy on Feb. 3. [YONHAP]

Kim also competed at four World Cups but did not have any top-10 finishes. Her best time for this season is 1:13.98 set in Calgary, Canada, in November, while her personal best is 1:13.42 from January 2024.

Femke Kok of the Netherlands led the World Cup overall standings with 264 points, thanks to one gold medal, two silver medals and two bronze medals in her five starts. When she won the World Cup title in Calgary, Kok clocked her personal-best time of 1:12.36.

Fellow Dutch skater Jutta Leerdam ranked second in the World Cup standings after winning three of her four 1,000-meter races and finishing fourth in the other. Her best time this season is 1:12.74.

Also on Monday, the ice dance team of Hannah Lim and Quan Ye will perform their rhythm dance in the individual figure skating competition at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.

Lim and Quan made their Olympic debut with the rhythm dance in the team event on Friday and scored 70.55 points.

The top 20 couples out of 23 in the rhythm dance will qualify for the free dance scheduled for Wednesday.

Jung Hye-sun, the lone Korean luger at the Olympics, will open the women's singles competition Monday with the first two of four runs at the Cortina Sliding Centre in Cortina d'Ampezzo.

Yonhap