According to the event’s website, Knoch beat three-times Olympic champion Canadian Charles Hamelin in quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals alike. Chinese skater Wu Dajing finished behind the Hungarian and Hamelin came third.

“I’m very happy, I didn’t expect a result like this. I felt tired after the German World Cup and I didn’t manage to proceed with a too good time from qualifiers, therefore I thought that quarter-finals may even be the end of the line for me”, he told the state news agency MTI, adding that to his luck, several contestants collided after the start and he was able to make an escape.

Combined results of the season’s six World Cup event show that Knoch and Sándor Liu Shaolin were the most successful Hungarian skaters, with the former finishing the season in fifth place on 500 metres and the latter coming seventh on 1000 metres.

The male relay team came fourth and the female eighth, enabling both to compete at the World Championships to be held in Moscow in mid-March. An official for the Hungarian skating federation pointed out that the objective continues to be qualification to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Source: hungarytoday.hu

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