Harbin: South Korea picked up silver in the men's team pursuit speed skating event at the Asian Winter Games in northeast China on Tuesday, as veteran Lee Seung-hoon earned his ninth career Asiad medal. The trio of Lee, Chung Jae-won, and Park Sang-eon clocked 3:47.99 at Heilongjiang Ice Events Training Center Speed Skating Oval in Harbin to finish in second place behind China (3:45.94). Japan grabbed the bronze medal in 3:52.93.

According to Yonhap News Agency, in team pursuit, two teams, with three skaters a side, each start on opposite sides of the oval. The race is 3,200 meters long for men (eight laps) and 2,400 meters for women (six laps). A team's time is recorded when its third skater crosses the finish line.

Before Harbin, Lee had won seven gold medals at Asian Winter Games, more than any South Korean athlete, with three in Kazakhstan in 2011 and four more in Japan in 2017. Lee also had a silver medal from the 2011 competition. Now with nine medals overall, Lee broke a tie with former short tracker Kim Dong-sung for most Winter Asiad medals by a South Korean athlete.

This was the final men's speed skating event in Harbin. It also might have been Lee's last Asian Winter Games, since he probably won't be active for the next edition in January or February 2029, when he will be 40 years old. After China's Liu Hanbin, Wu Yu, and Hanahati Muhamaiti had posted the fastest time skating in the second pairing, South Korea went up against the Japanese trio of Motonaga Arito, Taiyo Morino, and Kotaro Kasahara in the final pairing. The two countries were neck and neck early, with Japan holding a slight lead at the halfway mark. But then South Korea kicked into another gear and pulled away over the final stretch to finish comfortably in second place.