China's Gao Tingyu broke the men's 500m Olympic record today in Beijing ©Getty Images

China's Gao Tingyu set a new Olympic record in the men's 500 metres speed skating to give the host nation its fourth gold medal of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, here at the National Speed Skating Oval.

Gao became China's first male Olympic speed skating champion and the second from his nation after Zhang Hong won gold in the women's 1,000m.

Going up against Damien Zurek of Poland in the seventh pair, the 2018 Olympic bronze medallist bridged out a significant gap to his opponent, stunning the crowd who roared in celebration when his time of 34.32sec showed up as an Olympic record.

The previous best at the Games was set by Håvard Holmefjord Lorentzen of Norway at Pyeongchang 2018 when he beat Gao to gold in a time of 34.41.

"I just want to say that I made it, I said four years ago that I will win gold in Beijing 2022, and today I made it," said Gao after the race.

Cha Min-kyu of South Korea won Olympic silver in the event for a second Games in a row ©Getty Images
Cha Min-kyu of South Korea won Olympic silver in the event for a second Games in a row ©Getty Images

Cha Min-kyu of South Korea ducked under the previous Olympic record too for the silver medal in the 10th race and looked to have had a shot of usurping the Chinese skater, but was 0.07 behind in a time of 34.39.

It was his second silver medal in a row after finishing runner-up at his home Games four years ago.

Wataru Morishige of Japan was another tenth of a second off the pace of Cha for the bronze medal, making it an all-Asian podium.

Laurent Dubreuil of Canada and Piotr Michalski of Poland were 0.03 behind Morishige, settling for fourth and fifth instead.

Tomorrow is the women's 500m final, in which Nao Kodaira of Japan is the defending champion.