This competition exists out of three rounds, each with four teams. The two teams with the fastest times in each quarterfinal advance to the semifinals, with the two teams with the fastest times of each semifinal advancing to the final, while the remaining teams advance to the B final, with confirmation of a jury. The fastest team in the final is the winner of the event.
Preview[]
Twelve teams qualified for the inaugural edition of the event with quite a few medal contenders in the field. China won two of the four World Cup events, though the Netherlands won the most recent one, and the team representing ROC also had their peak during the World Cup season. Hungary, Canada, and South Korea seemed to be the most prominent outsiders, with also Italy, France, and Japan as teams with chances on medals.
Florence Brunelle was the youngest athlete to compete at the age of 18, and was five months younger than Michal Niewinski. The two lead the field over no fewer than six athletes born in 2001, with Lee Yu-bin as the only athlete born in the 21st century to make her second Olympic appearance. Yuri Confortola was the veteran of the field, making his fifth Olympic appearance at the age of 35, and was three years older than Sjinkie Knegt, who would be making his fourth Olympic Games. Arianna Fontana, who was less than a year younger than the Dutchman, was due to follow her countryman Confortola with her fifth Olympic appearance. Semen Elistratov and Martina Valcepina also had Olympic experience since 2010.
China won the inaugural edition of the mixed relay, making an exceptional start of the short track competition for the home country. Zhang Yuting won her first Olympic medal in her debut appearance, and Qu Chunyu also won her first Olympic medal. Wu Dajing won his fifth medal in three Olympic appearances, while Ren Ziwei won his second medal after having won silver with Wu in the men's relay in 2018. Italy also continued their good run of medals in short track relay events, having bronze in the women's relay in 2014 and silver in the same event in 2018. Hungary won their second team medal in short track after winning the Olympic title in the men's relay in 2018, while the Netherlands just missed out on the medals after lucking out for bronze in the women's relay in 2018 after two penalties in the final. Kazakhstan finished behind the Netherlands in the B final to rank fifth, while Canada received a penalty in the final to finish sixth.
China
Italy
Poland
Netherlands
Canada
Kazakhstan
France
Hungary
ROC
United States
Japan
