South Korean skaters dominated the last day of the first leg of this season-opening International Skating Union (ISU) World Cup by winning all six events Sunday.

The reigning ISU World Cup champions, South Korean Choi Eun-kyung and Ahn Hyun-soo won the women's and men's 1,000m race respectively to start the South Korean gold sweep.

The 20-year-old Choi, battled her way past China's Wang Meng, winner of 1,000m and 500m in the first days, with one lap remaining in the 9-lap race to pick up her first victory in the three-day competition in 1:33.629.

Wang took the runner-up by 1:33.951, with another South Korean Kang Yun-mi finished the third in 1:34.426.

On the men's side, Ahn, the winner of the overall titles at 2003 and 2004 World Championships, led the last four laps and clocked 1 minute 27 seconds 907 to take his title.

In the 3,000m finals, Jin Sun-yu from South Korea took the first place among the women in 5:4.798 ahead of Allison Baver from the United States.

Ahn, also the world record holder of 3,000m, won the men's race comfortably in 4:59.733.

The South Koreans continued to dominate in the last two relay races. China's Yang Yang (A), the returning 2002 Winter Olympic double gold medallist, stumbled twice on the 12th and 17th laps to allow the Koreans go top over Chinese and held on to win. China ranked fourth.

South Korean men took the 5,000m relay gold at 6: 54.483.

Wang then won the women's overall title by 90 points with American Apolo Anton Ohno ranked first on the men's by 97 points.

(China Daily October 25, 2004)