Chinese women team captures gold at ISU World Cup

China capped off the second ISU World Cup short-track meet of the season in strong fashion as the women's relay team won the 3,000-meter relay final Sunday, beating hosts Canada by just over a half-second.

The Chinese men fell just short of making it a double gold medal performance in the 5,000m relay final at the Maurice Richard Arena in Montreal, finishing just under a half-second behind the winning South Koreans and settling for a silver medal.

The women's relay team of Fan Kexin, Kong Xue, Li Jianrou and Liu Qiuhong showed improvement with each passing round.

Starting from the second position in the final, the Chinese women skated a flawless relay to cross the finish line in 4:14.305, just ahead of Canada (4:14.910) and Japan (4:16.358) as Liu picked up her second medal of the meet after earning a bronze in the 500m on Saturday.

Russia finished the relay in fourth, while top-ranked South Korea was a distant fifth.

In the men's 5,000m, China rebounded from a poor performance in the semifinals where they scraped in the final A in a time of 7:01.029.

In the final, however, the team of Chen Dequan, Han Tianyu, Yu Jiyang and Yu Yongjun put it together and pushed the top-ranked South Koreans (6:45.544) to the last stride, ultimately falling just short with a time of 6:45.864. United States took the bronze (6:48.577).

China failed to win a medal in both the men's and women's 1,000m final A races.

South Koreans Kwak Yoon-gy won the men's 1000m at 1:26.890 while Canada's Valerie Maltais won the women's 1000m at 1:30.865.

Over the three-day meet China finished with six medals, including gold medal performances by Wang Meng and Liang Wenhao in the women's and men's 500m.

The ISU World Cup circuit now goes to Asia for the third leg of the series in Nagoya, Japan, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2. The following week it will be in China from Dec. 7 to 9, at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center.