China claims first gold of universiade speed skating on women's 3,000m

2009-02-21 07:08:15 GMT2009-02-21 15:08:15 (Beijing Time) Xinhua English

China's Fu Chunyan competes during the women's 3000m final of speed skating in the 24th World Winter Universiade at Heilongjiang Speed Skating Gym in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Feb. 21, 2009. Fu won the title with 4:15.73.(Xinhua Photo)

HARBIN, Northeast China, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Fu Chunyan, who's competing in her first major international comprehensive event, took the first speed skating gold medal for China at the Harbin Universiade here Saturday after clocking four minutes and 15.73 seconds in the women's 3,000 meters.

The 22-year-old fell into the sofa crawl around the track after an exhausting sprint, in which she has kept a distant lead more than half a lap ahead of her racing partner Shoko Fujimura of Japan since half way.

Fu's teammate Dong Feifei, the silver medalist of the 1,500 meters on Friday, again stepped on the podium after finishing second on the general standings with a time of 4:16.33, while Poland's Luiza Zlotkowska settled for the bronze on 4:18.03.

South Korea's Lee Ju Youn slipped to the fourth after timing 4:18.92 for the seven and a half laps long distance race though theshort-course specialist led all the timings right after she start but hardly stumbled with just two laps to go.

Another Chinese Ji Jia finished a disappointing seventh after making a weak start and finishing in 4:20.15.

EMAIL | PRINT | RSS

Add Your Comments:

Please read our Terms of Service. Messages that harass, abuse or threaten others; have obscene or otherwise objectionable content; have spam, commercial or advertising content or links may be removed.