The Korean short track speed skating team made its debut at the 2025 International Skating Union (ISU) World Short Track Speed Skating Championships first day qualifiers for the 2024-2025 season. Among them, Park Ji-won, the signature player of the men's team, and Choi Min-jung and Kim Ji-ri of the women's team, the "double carriage", easily passed all the individual event qualifiers.

Park Ji-won sped through the men's 1500m quarterfinals on the first day of the 2025 International Skating Union (ISU) Short Track Speed Skating World Championships on the 14th.

On the 14th, Park Ji-won ranked second in the group in the first round of the men's 500m qualifiers held at the Capital Gymnasium in Beijing, and then passed the second round of the group qualifiers as the group leader and entered the quarterfinals. At the same time, Park Ji-won won the first place in the group in the first and second rounds of the men's 1000m preliminaries and entered the quarterfinals.

In the men's 1500m quarterfinals, Park Ji-won surpassed Li Wenlong (China, 2:16.698) with a time of 2:13.618 and reached the semi-finals with the first place in the second group.

The other two players on the South Korean men's team, Kim Keon-woo and Jang Sung-woo, also reached the quarter-finals of the men's 1000m and the semi-finals of the men's 1500m, but they did not compete in the men's 500m, the weak event of short track speed skating, in order to concentrate on the middle and long distance events. Instead, Seo Yila and Lee Jung-so were eliminated in the first round of the 500m qualifiers.

In the women's group, Cui Minjing and Jin Jili's performances are particularly prominent. Both athletes passed the first two heats of the women's 500m and women's 1000m. South Korea's Shuangshu also performed well in the women's 1500m quarterfinals, with Kim Ji-ri first in Group 3 with a time of 2:24.965 and Choi Min-jung in Group 5 with 2:31.602. Roh Do-hee, who participated in the same event, also managed to reach the semi-finals with a second place in Group 4. Lee So-yeon, who competed in the women's 1000m, finished third in Group 1 in the second round of qualifying, but was defeated in the loser's repechage.

Kim Jili is accelerating

The Korean team consisting of Lee Jung-so, Kim Keon-woo, Kim Kun-hee and Lee So-yeon finished second in the third group with a time of 2:39.788 in the quarterfinals of the mixed 2000m relay and entered the semifinals. The Netherlands, in the first group, set a world record of 2:35.339.

Choi Min-jeong, Kim Ji-ri, Roh Do-hee and Kim Kun-hee defeated the Netherlands (4:9.361) in the women's 3000m relay quarterfinals in Group 3 in 4:9.300 to finish first and successfully enter the semifinals. The South Korean men's 5000m relay team also reached the semi-finals - Park Ji-won, Jang Sung-woo, Lee Jung-so, and Seo Na won the first place in the second group of the quarter-finals in 6:48.029.

The Korean short track speed skating team will compete for medals on the 15th and 16th. The men's 500m, 1500m, women's 1000m, and women's 3000m relay finals will be held at the World Championships on the 15th, and the men's 1000m, women's 500m, 1500m, men's 5000m relay, and mixed 2000m relay finals will be held on the 16th.

The Korea Skating Association stipulates that one or more individual gold medals in this World Championships and the best male and female players in the team will be automatically awarded the national representative qualification for the 2025-2026 season, and the Korean short track speed skating team led by Park Ji-won, Choi Min-jung, Kim Ji-ri and other famous players may give it a go at this World Championships. In addition, the 2026 Winter Olympics will be held next season, so this World Championships will be the first round of trials for South Korean athletes. It is expected that the Korean national team players will compete fiercely not only with foreign players, but also with domestic players. Players who are not automatically selected for the Korean national team will compete fiercely in the first and second rounds of the national team selection tournament to be held next month.