With a dramatic clash between the Chinese Loongs and the Korean White Tigers drawing global attention, the short-track speed skating program at Harbin 2025 is guaranteed to be a world-class showcase of the sport at its highest level.
Forget about the much anticipated opening ceremony, at least for now, as the hair-raising, heart-pumping hot pursuit at the Heilongjiang Ice Training Center — where Friday morning's preliminary rounds of short-track speed skating are being held — has already stolen the limelight at the continental gala event.
As arguably the world's most decorated national program in short-track, the Republic of Korea, known as the White Tigers on the rebranded ISU World Tour, is on the prowl to capture as many of the nine gold medals up for grabs in Harbin as it can when the shorttrack final sessions take place this weekend.
"We are looking at winning six gold medals or more," head coach Yoon Jae-myung told reporters before the team arrived in Harbin on Sunday. "Our athletes are in decent form, and we'll do our best to accomplish our goal."
On Saturday morning, the first gold medal of Harbin 2025 is expected to be awarded in the short-track speed skating 2,000m mixed relay, followed by the finals of the men's and women's 1,500m and 500m races. Sunday will cap off the tightly scheduled shorttrack program in Harbin with two more individual finals in 1,000m, and the women's 3,000m and men's 5,000m relays.
The ROK women's team features three-time Olympic champion Choi Min-jeong, who took a leave of absence last season but has come back strong. She's joined by Kim Gil-li, last season's ISU World Cup overall champion and Shim Sukhee, who has won two Olympic gold medals.
Two-time ISU World Cup overall title winner Park Ji-won will lead the men's squad, joined by Jang Sung-woo and Kim Gun-woo. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, Lee Jung-su, the team's elder statesman at 35, will be competing in the relay.
"The 2,000m mixed relay will be the first final, and we want to get off to a good start there," Choi said. "Since the Games are in China, we expect some tough competition against Chinese skaters. We will try to avoid collisions with them and stay on our feet to win gold medals."
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After completing the first four stops on the 2024-25 Short-Track World Tour, the Chinese squad, dubbed the Loongs by fans on the circuit, has recovered physically and mentally from the demanding ISU races, and is primed to help get the host delegation off to a scintillating start in Harbin, despite the fierce challenge posed by the Koreans.
Team China, coached by Zhang Jing, will lean on its roster's blend of youth and experience — bolstered by men's Olympic gold medalists Liu Shaoang and Lin Xiaojun, and women's veteran Fan Kexin — to deliver its best Asian Winter Games performance on home ice.
Star skater Lin, who was born in ROK but chose to represent China in 2019 as a naturalized athlete, said he cannot wait to go for gold on his Asian Winter Games debut.
"The Asian Winter Games are the only competition where I don't have a medal," Lin, the men's 1,500m gold medalist at the 2018 Winter Olympics, told CGTN in Korean.
"The event I'm most excited about is actually the team event. My biggest ambitions are winning gold medals in the men's 5,000m relay and mixed 2,000m relay.
"For the past year, the athletes have worked hard through sweat and tears in preparation for these events. The men's 5,000m relay is the last event in short-track speed skating, so that's the one I'm most focused on," Lin said.
Aiming to spoil the party of the East Asian powers will be emerging short-track contender Kazakhstan, a team that boasts world championships silver medalist Denis Nikisha in the men's 500m alongside a group of talented teen skaters.
The Kazakh short-track team had five days of training at the Heilongjiang Ice Training Center before the prelims kicked off, and is confident that the team's solid pre-Games camp will deliver breakthrough results, said head coach Petr Gamidov.
"The rink is very good, and the ice is of high quality and fast. I think the athletes will achieve good results," he told Xinhua. "Our goals are, of course, medals, and we hope the athletes will have an intense and fair competition," Gamidov added.
Also setting golden ambitions at the Heilongjiang Ice Training Center is the Japanese figure skating team, widely considered a hot favorite for both the men's and women's events in the most aesthetic ice sport, which begins its three-day program on Feb 11 at the same arena, following the completion of the short-track racing events.
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Japan's mighty figure skating squad stars three-time women's world champion Kaori Sakamoto and two-time men's Olympic silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama.
