South Korea were eliminated in the short-track 2,000-meter mixed relay semifinals at the 2026 Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Olympics after a midrace collision, and skater Choi Min-jung said she will focus on the remaining events.
The South Korean team were knocked out Monday (Korea time) at the Milan Ice Skating Arena when Kim Gil-li collided with a U.S. skater and fell, dropping the team to third. Only the top two advanced to the final.
Choi, who skates for Seongnam City Hall, quickly tagged Kim and continued the race, but the gap was too large to close. Coach Kim Min-jung immediately appealed to officials for an advance, but it was denied. Officials ruled South Korea were running third at the time of the incident.
After the race, Choi told reporters, “I’ll prepare for the next race.”
Describing the crash, she said South Korea were in third when “the U.S. skater who was in first fell,” and Kim “couldn’t avoid it and got caught up and fell.”
Choi added, “If we had been in second, we could have gotten an advance,” and said the team share responsibility: “If we do well, we all did well, and if we don’t, we all didn’t. Today, I think we didn’t do well.”
She called it the kind of situation that can happen in short track, saying luck was not on their side, but “another day it can be good.” “Now that the first event is over, I’ll do better in the next events,” she said.
Choi said the team wanted momentum from the opening event but fell short, adding they vowed to do better and that she will “do my best through the remaining events.”
In the 500-meter preliminaries held earlier, Choi said she was nervous in her first event but advanced to the quarterfinals. “Now the competition really begins, so I’ll show a good performance going forward,” she said.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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