The 28-year-old won Olympic gold medals in the 1,000 and 1,500 metres short track events at at Vancouver 2010 but subsequently switched to speed skating before Sochi 2014, a sport in which he comparatively struggled.

The switch came after Lee had served a three-year ban imposed on him in May 2010 by the Korea Skating Union for allegedly trying to fix races to help team-mate Kwak Yoon-gy.

Lee claims he is not worried about returning to short track. 

"I've made this switch [from long track to short track] before, and it wasn't such a difficult decision to make this time," he is reported as saying by South Korean news agency Yonhap.

"I want to stay patient, get my feel back and hopefully turn back the clock."

Lee failed to make the South Korea team for Pyeongchang 2018 after finishing seventh in national qualification.

"I am far from 100 per cent because I only started training after Pyeongchang," he said. 

"After the trials for the Pyeongchang Olympics ended, I promised my fans in media interviews that I'll keep doing the best I can until the day I call it quits.

"And I plan to do just that until I hang up my skates.

"My goal is to skate at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics."