NZ speed skaters sluggish but in semis

The New Zealand speed skating team qualified for Wednesday’s Winter Olympic Games semifinals despite their ‘‘worst run’’ in recent experience.

Paired against Norway in quarter final 1 on Monday morning (NZ time), the New Zealand team of Reyon Kay, Peter Michael and Shane Dobbin struggled with a warmer ice temperature in PyeongChang than they had been used to in training, and also admitted to a few nerves.

‘‘It’s definitely the [worst] run we’ve done in a couple of weeks, more than likely it was just the nerves,’’ Dobbin said. ‘‘We’ve got a few points we need to work on now. Knowing that the ice is warmer we’ll make a few technical changes and come out fighting on Wednesday.’’

The Kiwis, who clocked

3min 41sec, grabbed fourth place in the qualifiers to narrowly make it through. They will face top qualifiers Republic of Korea (3:39.29s) in Semi Final

1 on Wednesday.

‘‘It’ll be a tough run against Korea,’’ Michael said. ‘‘We put pressure on ourselves and we expect nothing but the best so we’ll always be striving for more.’’

Kay agreed the Kiwis were ‘‘pretty fortunate to go through to the next round’’ but were ‘‘looking forward to the challenge’’.

The Republic of Korea toppled world heavyweights the Netherlands, who rounded out the heats with 3.40.03 while Norway was able to grab third.