Chinese short-track speed skater Liu Shaoang competes in the men's 1,500m Final A at the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Saturday. (WEI XIAOHAO / CHINA DAILY)
After a dramatic night when luck was never on its side, China's gold-hunting short-track speed skating team opted to trust the process and keep pushing for breakthroughs at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics.
Even with two men qualified, following a thrilling 1,500m Final A on Saturday, the Chinese squad came up empty-handed after Sun Long, the fresh 1,000m silver medalist, and his two-time Olympic champion teammate Liu Shaoang — due to an unexpected collision with British skater Niall Treacy — both crashed out of the track midway through the 13-and-a-half-lap race at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
The chaos caused by Treacy, who was penalized for illegal contact, knocked Liu and Sun off balance, tripping both of them right when the Chinese duo was poised to launch an overtake with five laps to go in the crowded nine-skater final.
Adding to the misfortune, Sun was apparently hurt in the crash as he was seen leaving the rink with his right knee bandaged with blood seeping through the gauze.
Earlier in the quarterfinals of the same event, Team China's third skater, Lin Xiaojun, also fell off the track without any apparent contact with the other competitors in his group, much to the disappointment of Chinese supporters at the southern Milan arena.
Jens van't Wout of the Netherlands won the final in two minutes and 12.219 seconds to collect his second short-track gold in Milan, after his 1,000m victory on Thursday. Hwang Daeheon of South Korea won silver in 2:12.304 before Latvia's Roberts Kruzbergs rounded out the podium by finishing third in 2:12.376.
Despite the setbacks, Liu insisted that Team China will carry on with its mission resiliently and relentlessly.
"It was a regret tonight that we got blocked and then taken down when we were gaining on fast," a calm Liu said of the crash after the 1,500m Final A.
"I could've come up to the third or second place, and launch a final attack from there.
"It was really hard to catch up from behind in a nine-skater final. It was physically demanding."
Chinese short-track speed skater Sun Long leaves the rink with his right knee bandaged after injuring his leg in a crash during the men's 1,500m Final A at the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Saturday. (WEI XIAOHAO / CHINA DAILY)
Although shocked and wounded, Sun will never give up fighting and is expected to compete in the men's 5,000m relay, Liu said.
"I believe he won't give up, none of us would although we are having a hard time," Liu said, who won two Olympic gold medals in 5,000m relay at Peyongchang 2018 and 500m at Beijing 2022, both representing his born nation Hungary.
"We will pull it through anyway, even without luck on our side. We will never back down in the face of challenges, and we will do it together as a team," Liu said, who chose to switch his nationality and represent his father's native country China in 2023.
Earlier on Saturday, during the women's 3,000m relay, China's quartet of Gong Li, Zhang Chutong, Yang Jingru, and Wang Xinran finished first in the Final B to eventually rank fifth overall in the team event.
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