Park Ji-won won the 1,000m to rank first overall in the first round

Park Ji-won (27, Seoul City Hall), the flagship of the Korean men's short track, passed the first round of selection for the national team.

In the men's 1,000-meter final competition for the national short-track speed skating team for the 2024-2025 season, which ended at Mokdong Indoor Ice Rink on Sunday, Park ranked first with a time of 1:24.865, earning 34 points. Park ranked second (2:19.400, 21 points) in the 1,500-meter final on Sunday, and overcame the pain of being eliminated from the 500-meter semi-final (6 points) to rank first in the first competition with a total of 55 points. She tied with Kim Gun-woo (55 points), but secured the top spot in the CDR (14 points), which is calculated based on round rankings, lower than Kim Gun-woo (21 points). The lower the CDR, the higher the ranking.

Following last season, Park won the men's overall title in the ISU World Cup Series again this season. However, Park had the misfortune to be pushed out of the rankings after colliding with Hwang Dae-heon (Gangwon Provincial Government) in both the 1,500-meter and 1,000-meter World Championships, where the automatic selection ticket for the national team is up for grabs. In both cases, Hwang was ruled as a penalty. In the 500-meter semifinal race, the two collided while passing Hwang on the in-course with a curved line, causing Park to fall over.

Park's only way to survive was to win the title through an overwhelming race on the day. As such, she had strong motivation. She finished the race by ranking first in all of the preliminary preliminary rounds (Group 8; 1:23.289) to preliminary rounds (Group 4; 1:24.688), quasi-final (Group 4; 1:23.795), quasi-final (Group 1; 1:26.819) and final rounds.

Hwang received a penalty for making a rough foul on Park Noh-won (Hwaseong City Hall) during the 1,000-meter preliminary round (Group 7). When he was overtaken by Kim Gun-woo and Park Noh-won one after another in the middle of the race, he caused problems through rough plays. "The penalty code for Hwang is 'S9', and the player from the outside does not give up space at the end of the straight line, and thus the penalty will be processed," said an official from the Korea Skating Union. Hwang will take the ninth place overall with a total of five points to start his second competition. In the women's category, Shim Suk-hee (Seoul City Hall) topped Choi Min-jeong (Seongnam City Hall, 52 points) with a total of 71 points. Shim ranked first in the 1,500-meter and 500-meter races and Choi Min-jeong in the 1,000-meter race.

Meanwhile, the top 24 men's and women's teams at the first competition will advance to the second competition. Eight men's and seven women's teams will be selected for the 2024-2025 season with the combined points from the two competitions. In the women's team, Kim Ki-li (Seongnam City Hall), a 1,500-meter gold medalist at this year's World Championship, has already been automatically selected.

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