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In the short track mixed relay, a new event in the Beijing Olympics, our national team was knocked out of the preliminary round by shock due to the bad luck of tripping over the ice.
Host country China became the first champion.
Ha Seong-ryong is a reporter from Beijing.
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Our national team had bad luck in the first match of the mixed relay.
Choi Min-jung, Lee Yu-bin, Park Jang-hyuk, and Hwang Dae-heon competed for second place with Italy at the last minute.
However, with a little more than two laps left, Park Jang-hyuk fell over when his skate blade got caught in the ice.
Daeheon Hwang, who was preparing as the last runner, went around the rink for a while and tagged it, but could not close the gap, and we crossed the finish line in 3rd place and failed to advance to the semifinals.
The athletes who flew their dreams of winning the first medal in the mixed relay refused to be interviewed and left the joint coverage area.
[Hwang Dae-heon/Short Track Olympic Representative: I will (interview) later.]
On the other hand, the host country, China, was lucky.
China crossed the finish line in 3rd place in the semifinals and seemed to be frustrated, but as a result of the video analysis, the 2nd place USA was disqualified due to an ambiguous decision and was disqualified due to an ambiguous decision.
And in the final, they beat Italy to win the gold medal and became the first champion.
In the individual event held earlier, our players cruised.
In the men's 1,000m event, Daeheon Hwang, Janghyuk Park, and Junseo Lee all passed the preliminary round with first place in the group, and Minjeong Choi, ace of the women's division, took the first place in the 500m preliminary round.
The national team will again challenge the gold medal in the women's 500m and men's 1,000m on the night of tomorrow (7th).