Lee Na-hyun, right, who won the gold medal in the women's 100-meter speed skating event, and Kim Min-sun, who won the silver medal, pose with their medals at the Asian Winter Games at the Heilongjiang Ice Events Training Center Speed Skating Oval in Harbin, China, Feb. 8. Yonhap

South Korean teammates Lee Na-hyun and Kim Min-sun captured the gold and silver medals in the women's 100-meter speed skating race at the Asian Winter Games in China, Saturday.

Lee finished the sprint event in 10.501 seconds, while Kim came in second at 10.505 seconds in the inaugural Winter Asiad event at the Heilongjiang Ice Events Training Center Speed Skating Oval in Harbin, northeast China.

Chen Ying-Chu of Chinese Taipei took bronze in 10.51 seconds.

Skaters competed in pairs, and Lee, in the eighth and penultimate pair, clocked 10.50 seconds.

Then in the final group, Kim also clocked 10.50 seconds, forcing the judges to go down to the one-thousandth of a second to determine Lee as the champion by a hair.

This was the first speed skating gold for South Korea in Harbin.

Earlier Saturday, Kim Jun-ho won the bronze medal in the men's 100m event in 9.62 seconds, behind Gao Tingyu of China (9.35) and Yevgeniy Koshkin of Kazakhstan (9.47).

Lee, 19, was not regarded as a medal threat in the 100m, which is not an Olympic event but was added to the Asiad for the first time here.

"I just skated like I was training, but still ended up with a pretty good time," Lee said. "This is just the beginning for me. I still have long ways to go but I'd like to think I have a bright future ahead of me."

Lee and Kim will go at it again in the 500m Sunday. Kim has been one of the world's top performers in the 500m in recent years.

Of her own 500m prospects, Lee said, "I would just like to win a medal, regardless of the color." (Yonhap)