Lee wins 500m speed skating gold

South Korea continued their domination of the speed skating events when Sang-Hwa Lee held off world record holder Jenny Wolf to win the women's 500m.

Lee edged out the German by only five hundredths of a second to emulate Tae-Bum Mo, who won the men's 500m title, South Korea's first speed skating gold.

Wolf had the best time in the second of the two races, but Lee won with a combined one minute 16.09 seconds.

China's Wang Beixing, who had been expected to battle for gold, was third.

Wolf and Wang had swept all eight races during the World Cup season and were overwhelming favourites to battle for gold at the Olympic oval.

But Lee grabbed the lead in the first race, with a time of 38.249 seconds, 0.058 ahead of Wolf, with Wang recording a time of 38.487.

Wolf stuck out her blade to edge Lee at the line in 37.838 in the final race, but the Korean's 37.850 was good enough for gold.

"All my friends won medals, so I had a little bit of pressure," Lee said. "I was a little bit worried."

Wolf tried to remain upbeat after receiving the silver medal.

"Right now I'm a little bit confused," she said.

"I wanted to win gold, but winning an Olympic medal is the biggest thing you can imagine when you're a child. Now I have a medal and I can be really proud."

South Korea have won medals in three of the four races completed so far, with Seung-Hoon Lee winning an unexpected silver in the men's 5,000m.

Tae-bum Mo, who captured gold in the men's 500m race on Monday, is expected to be one of the top challengers to American world-record holder Shani Davis in Wednesday's 1,000m.

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