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Hopes high for Team Korea as short track event approaches

Published: 09 Feb. 2026, 10:20

Korean short track speed skaters train for the Winter Olympics at Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan on Feb. 6. [YONHAP]

The short track speed skating competition of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics will begin Tuesday, with the first set of medals to be awarded in the mixed team relay.

Korea has won more short track gold medals than anyone in Olympic history with 26, but the powerhouse crashed out of the quarterfinals at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games when the mixed team relay made its debut.

The mixed team relay is 2,000 meters (1.24 miles) long, or 18 laps, and countries will each have two female and two male skaters. They must follow this specific order: female No. 1, female No. 2, male No. 1, male No. 2, female No. 1, female No. 2, male No. 1 and male No. 2.

Each skater will cover two and a half laps on the first leg and two laps on the second leg.

During the 2025-2026 International Skating Union Short Track World Tour season, four different countries each won a mixed team relay gold medal — Korea, China, Canada and the Netherlands. The Dutch team added two silvers while Korea had one silver and one bronze.

The mixed team relay will start with the quarterfinals just before noon at Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan. The early morning session will have the heats for the women's 500 meters and the men's 1,000 meters.

Then starting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the same venue, Cha Jun-hwan and Kim Hyun-gyeom will perform their short programs in the men's singles figure skating.

Cha's third Olympics got off to a disappointing start on Saturday in the team event, where he mistimed the takeoff for his double axel — a jump he rarely misses — and settled for 83.53 points, a little over eight points off his season best.

This will be Kim's Olympic debut.

Yonhap