Shaoang Liu strikes first World Cup gold for China after switching allegiance
BySportsbeat
Published 23/10/2023 at 09:29 GMT
A year ago, Shaoang and brother Shaolin Sandor controversially chose to relocate to Beijing and compete for China, the country of their father's birth.
Eurosport
Image credit: Eurosport
Olympic short track champion Shaoang Liu believes his new Beijing training base can take his skating to the next level after taking his first major victory since switching allegiance from Hungary to China.
While Shaolin crashed out of the final, Shaong was the class of the field and took 500m gold at the World Cup curtain-raiser in Montreal.
"I am really happy" he said. "I can be here to represent China and that's a great feeling. The race was exciting."
Shaong said of his new set-up: "The facility is amazing. Everything is at such a high level. It is a huge difference. In China, they put everything together and they know how to prepare everything.
"It is crazy. I've never seen a facility like it from training in other countries: Hungary, USA and Korea."
Korea's Kim Gun Woo capitalised on a late crash involved teammates to earn 1000m victory after missing out on Saturday.
The home fans were on their feet as Canada secured men's 5000m relay gold ahead of Korea and Japan.
There was a glimpse of the future on the women's side as youngsters Xandra Velzboer of the Netherlands and Korea's Kim Gilli won gold over 500m and 1000m respectively.
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