体坛英语新闻：Chinese teenager skater Fan retains women's 500m world title

SHANGHAI, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese teenager skater Fan Kexin retained her title of the women's 500 meters at the ISU Short Track Speedskating Shanghai worlds on Saturday, while the men's 500m gold was taken by Olivier Jean of Canada.

Fan, 18, winner of the event at 2011 Sheffield worlds, clocked the fastest time in the final at 44.438 seconds, edging Italian Arianna Fontana, bronze medallist of the event at 2010 Vancouver Olympics, by 0.029 seconds. Lana Gehring of the United States finished third in 44.815.

"It's my second World Championships and I am happy with my performance today," said Fan. "But I felt sorry for my teammate Liu Qiuhong, as she fell in the heats."

Veteran Liu Qiuhong, runner-up of the women's 1,500m on Friday, slipped and fell in the 500m heats and failed to make the quarterfinals.

Fontana, world No. 1 in the event, said she was satisfied with the silver. "Of course I wanted to win. Who don't want to win. But I'm still happy and tomorrow will be another day, I will try to do better."

Fan, winner of the event at last year's World Cup in Shanghai, said she still needs to make improvement in her skills and strength.

"I will keep training hard and I hope I can achieve some good results at the 2014 Sochi Games," she said.

In the men's 500m final, Jean led the race to finish with 41.077 seconds, while his teammate Charles Hamelin took the silver at 41.035. The bronze went to Kwak Yoon-Gy of South Korea in 41.479.

Chinese favorite Liang Wenhao, winner of the event at 2010 World Championships, fell down in the semifinals and failed to reach the final.

A total of 260 athletes and officials from 33 countries and regions are attracted by the three-day Short Track worlds running from March 9 to 11.

Chinese four-time Winter Olympic champion Wang Meng was disqualified for the Worlds as she had been expelled from the national team and banned from domestic and international competitions since last August.