Short track: China's dominant Wang retains 500m title

Vancouver (AFP) - China's Wang Meng retained her Olympic 500-metre women's short-track speed skating title Wednesday and warned there was more to come as she kicked off her all-conquering bid at the Vancouver Games.

The 24-year-old never looked back after leading around the first bend to finish the four-way final in 43.048sec with Canada's birthday girl Marianne St-Gelais second in 43.707.

"I felt I could beat her (St-Gelais) at the start. I felt I could go very smooth and I wouldn't have any problems," said Wang.

"I have a lot of confidence. I feel my 500m is stronger than it was in Turin."

And she admitted: "I slowed down on the last lap."

"This is the first gold. The next event is the 1,500m," she warned.

"I feel that it's my duty to win that. For sure there's a lot of pressure but I'll find the motivation for the other events.

"The Olympics is a very exciting time for China. No matter how many Olympics you go to the dream never dies."

Wang, who stopped South Korea's gold-medal sweep of four women's Olympic medals in 2006, is also set to race in the 1,000m, 1,500m and the 3,000m relay in Vancouver with great prospects.

She took the overall, 500m and 1000m titles at the 2009 world championships a year after sweeping all world titles in the Olympic distances.

Wang also won the 1000m silver and the 1500m bronze at the Torino 2006 Olympic Games.

Italy's Arianna Fontana finished third in 43.804 and another Canadian Jessica Gregg fourth in 44.204.

At last year's worlds, the 24-year-old Wang beat South Korean Kim Min-Jung into second spot with teammate Zhou Yang third to claim the back-to-back women's overall titles.

"It's a nicest birthday present I could have," said St-Gelais.

"I got off to a fast start and was able to keep the speed up throughout the race. I knew it was possible, but with short track, you never know what's going to happen."

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Short
• track
• China
• dominant
• Wang
• retains
• 500m
• title
• vancouver
• 2010
• Meng

[kofshingo8888]

Yeah so what? At what age Tiger Wood starts to practice golf? What about Kobe Bryant with basketball? Or Diego Maradona with soccer. I don't see where are you going with this. There aren't as many ice tracks in China, at least not as many as there are in the USA and Canada. So don't count chinese gold as gold, count it as diamond.

[hanzhimeng]

@hgkk2 So what? They work hard. They deserve the honour. What a loser.

[vincentsong]

@youtubo1073

btw have u ever counted how many times korea has cheated?

i wud say,,,pretty much every single games korean attend

[DrFlippin]

the Chinese skaters are the best but why do they all look like fish heads?

[8zymurgy]

that's right korea, maybe you will do better in summer, o wait china owns u in that too

[steven1170]

Chinese Ping-pong Team. U ass whole.Btw,go check how you korean people cheat on 1000m short track.

[elmyriver]

Wang Meng, Great Girl, Hero.

[rockzhang]

Shinning star, Awesome....

Wang meng, the best one forever...