Fan earns second 500m victory in Nagoya to top Short Track Speed Skating World Cup standings

Kexin Fan leads the women's 500m standings after back-to-back victories ©Getty Images

China’s Kexin Fan triumphed for the second successive day in the women’s 500 metres as the International Skating Union (ISU) Short Track Speed Skating World Cup in the Japanese city of Nagoya drew to a close.

Fan had led from the outset in yesterday’s final, but the reigning world champion was forced to hold off Germany’s Anna Seidel in the closing stages of the second sprint event of the weekend.

The Chinese skater stopped the clock in 43.921sec to claim the gold, with her 17-year-old opponent crossing the line 0.062 seconds behind to win silver.

The podium positions were completed by Canada’s Audrey Phaneuf, who finished narrowly ahead of South Korea’s Shim Suk-Hee in the battle for bronze.

Having earned back-to-back victories, Fan moved to the top of the overall World Cup standings on 33,198 points, with former leader Marianne St-Gelais of Canada now second on 24,400.

With the men’s leader Charles Hamelin opting to compete in the 1,000m on the second day of action, his brother François Hamelin stormed to gold in the second 500m race, with the Canadian winning in a time of 41.296.

Russia’s Artem Kozlov and China’s Guang Chen battled to silver and bronze respectively in the five-man final.

The Hamelin brothers now occupy the top two positions in the World Cup standings, with Charles leading François by 1,331 points.

South Korea's Choi Min-jeong won the women's 1,000m to complete a successful weekend ©Getty Images

The 500m leader was unable to secure a second medal of the weekend after he was penalised by the judges in the men’s 1,000m final, dropping him to fourth position.

Russia’s Semen Elistratov secured gold to extend his World Cup lead over the Canadian to 1,280 points, while Hungary’s Shaolin Sandor Liu and The Netherlands’ Freek van der Wart completed the podium positions.

The women’s event saw South Korea's Choi Min-jeong, winner of yesterday’s 1,500m, claim gold in a time of 1min 32.312sec with Canada’s Marianne St-Gelais trailing in second place and her team-mate Kim Alang third.

Choi now holds an 8,000 point lead over Shim Suk-Hee in overall standings, having move onto 28,000 points.

South Korea were able to celebrate further success as their women’s 3,000m team earned victory in a stunning time of 4min 13.596sec, with China and Canada finishing four seconds off the pace to win silver and bronze.

Meanwhile,The Netherlands’ claimed the men’s 5,000 relay honours after clocking a time of 6:59.079 to beat China to gold.

Canada held off the challenge of South Korea to win bronze in 6:59.405.

The next leg of the World Cup is due to take place in Shanghai, starting on Friday (December 11).