Team China vows to come back strong after mixed relay flop
Team China's gold hunt at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics suffered another miss when the country's short-track speed skating squad came up short defending the 2,000m mixed relay title on Tuesday.
Advancing on momentum from smooth performances in the quarterfinals and semifinals, the Chinese quartet of Gong Li, Zhang Chutong, Liu Shaoang, and Sun Long got off to an explosive start in Final A, pushing ahead of hosts Italy, Canada, and Belgium to lead during the first 11 laps before an error by Zhang at a corner allowed Italian veteran Arianna Fontana to take over the lead with seven laps to go.
China's hot pursuit of the Italians was thrown off by a second error, this time from Sun, who stumbled on a step coming into the third lap from home, dropping the skater back behind the chasing pack before Liu's final leg took fourth place at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
Hosts Italy won gold in 2 minutes, 39.019 seconds, followed by runner-up Canada in 2:39.258, and third-place Belgium in 2:39.353.
After missing out on the coveted relay gold, Team China remained positive and vowed to fully focus on individual medals.
"Of course, it felt a bit regretful to end the race this way, but I think everyone skated really well in the first few rounds and in the final (before the errors)," Liu, a two-time Olympic champion, said of Team China's performance. "Perhaps some of my teammates were quite nervous because it was their first Olympics, which is understandable. It's a team event, so we lose together and we win together. The mistakes are on us all.
"I hope today's result won't get us carried away. Now, it's time to recover, refocus, and push harder for the rest of the events in the next few days."
Liu, who was a formidable member of Hungary's gold-winning men's 5,000m relay team at Pyeongchang 2018, was born in Budapest to a Chinese father and Hungarian mother. He decided to switch nationality to represent his father's home country after winning his second Olympic gold in the 500m with Team Hungary at Beijing 2022.
The short-track action will resume on Thursday with the men's 1,000m and women's 500m titles to be decided.
Liu, Sun, and another Chinese man, Lin Xiaojun, advanced into the 1,000m quarterfinals with impressive runs in Tuesday's heats.
On the women's side, three Chinese women, Wang Xinran, Fan Kexin, and Zhang, have qualified from the heats for Thursday's 500m quarterfinals.
