South Korean short track speed skater Choi Min-jeong speaks during the national team press conference ahead of the International Skating Union Short Track World Tour at Mokdong Ice Rink in Seoul on Dec. 11, 2024. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — With her first several international races in the books following a sabbatical, South Korean short tracker Choi Min-jeong has learned that she could still go up against the best of the best and come out on top.
That realization is bad news for her rivals this week, as Choi, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, gears up for her first International Skating Union (ISU) event on home ice in well over a year.
Mokdong Ice Rink in Seoul will host the fourth leg of the ISU Short Track World Tour from Friday to Sunday. It will be Choi’s first international competition at home since the world championships in March 2023.
About a month after the worlds, Choi decided to skip the national team trials and sit out all international events for the 2023-2024 season. She planned to undergo a skate change and work on new techniques in preparation for the 2026 Winter Olympics, while also taking a breather from years of nonstop competition. Other than entering some domestic events, Choi, 26, mostly stayed away from the spotlight.
Then in April 2024, Choi won the national team trials on the women’s side for the 2024-2025 season, apparently not having missed a beat during her time away.
Through three World Tour competitions, Choi is the top South Korean woman in the overall points standings with 516, thanks to one gold, one silver and two bronze medals. Skaters earn points based on their placements in each individual race, with the gold medal worth 100 points, the silver medal good for 80 points and the bronze medal giving them 70 points, and so forth.
Choi grabbed a bronze in the 1,500 meters in the first leg in Montreal in October, and followed that up with a gold in the 1,000m and a silver in the 500m in the next leg in November, also in Montreal.
At the third World Tour event in Beijing last weekend, Choi shared a bronze medal with Corinne Stoddard of the United States in the 1,000m.
These early results have given Choi confidence for the rest of the season, with more World Tour events, the Asian Winter Games and the world championships to follow.
“Before the first couple of World Tour events, I was curious to find out how competitive I could be after my absence,” Choi said at the national team press conference at Mokdong on Wednesday. “And I realized I could still compete at a high level. I had a mixed performance at the third stop, but I am feeling good physically now. I am looking forward to a good competition.”
After the first two World Tour legs, Choi said she decided to take the ice with more confidence and be more aggressive. However, she hit a bit of a snag in Beijing.
“I thought I was feeling pretty good physically, but some things didn’t go the way I wanted them to,” she said. “And I felt that other skaters were performing really well and that I still had a long way to go in some aspects.
“It’s going to be a quick turnaround after the third event, but I will try to address the shortcomings I had there,” Choi continued. “My goal this week is to skate better than I did last week.”
(Yonhap)
