'I wanted to let my brother win,' claims Liu

The 22-year-old Hungarian, who was part of his country's successful 5000m relay-winning team at the PyeongChang winter Olympics, won the second World Cup event of the 2018-19 season in Salt Lake City.

However, everything didn't go to plan, with Shaolin doing his best to keep his younger brother Shaoang, who won in Calgary, Canada, earlier this month, in front.

But with South Korea's Ji Won Park and China's Ren Ziwei proved unrelenting and Shaolin had no choice but to go for gold himself, and in the end, Shaoang, who initially looked to have won bronze, was penalised for impeding Park, missing out on the podium completely.

"My plan was to let him win," said Shaolin, the elder of the Liu siblings.

"I wanted him to stay at the top of the classification, so my plan was to try and help him as much as I could.

"I'd already agreed this with myself – he would win, and I would come second.

"I was blocking the Korean and Chinese skaters but I felt my brother's speed wasn't quite enough to get to the line, so I had to make a really hard decision and pass him.

"It was a tough race. The others were racing really hard. Obviously, I'm still really happy I won the 1000m but I'm also disappointed he didn't win but maybe we're just going to alternate with each other.

"Last week he won – this time, it's me. Maybe next time, it'll be him again and we can make it as one and two. We will see."

Elsewhere, the Netherlands' Sjinkie Knegt comfortably won men's 1,500m gold, getting the better of Lee June Seo of Korea and Canada’s Steven Dubois.

Sportsbeat 2018