Norway's Havard Lorentzen celebrates victory in men's 500m event of speed skating at 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games at Gangneung Oval, Gangneung, South Korea, Feb. 19, 2018. Havard Lorentzen claimed champion in a time of 34.41 and set a new Olympic record. (Xinhua/Ju Huanzong)
PYEONGCHANG, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- Havard Lorentzen became the first Norwegian winner of the Olympic speed skating men's 500m in 70 years as he was victorious on Monday with an Olympic record in PyeongChang.
Lorentzen broke the Olympic record in a time of 34.41 seconds, only 0.01 second faster than the silver medalist Cha Min Kyu of South Korea. Gao Tingyu of China won bronze with a time of 34.65 second, becoming the first male Chinese speed skater to win a medal at the Olympic Winter Games.
Lorentzen followed in the footsteps of Norway's Finn Helgesen who won the gold medal in this event in 1948.
"It's the best race I've ever done. It's been 20 years since the last gold medal (for) Norway in speed skating, so it's been a while," Lorentzen said. "It's time for Norway to step up on the top of the podium again. It feels so good to do that today."
Lorentzen finished second at the world sprint championships (overall classification) in 2017 at Calgary, Canada.
