Too fast, too furious and too exciting to miss.

With competition heating up on a revamped World Tour, China's elite short-track speed skaters have laced up for a challenging new season as they step up a gear to prepare for the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Longing for the race weekends full of drama, speed and razor-thin winning margins on ice? The re-branded International Skating Union Short Track World Tour has guaranteed that the most intense skating discipline will only return fiercer, tighter and intriguingly more unpredictable when the 2024-25 season's six-leg series kicks off on Friday in Montreal, Canada.

Team China, officially known as the "Chinese Loongs" under the new branding, has braced itself for an elevated level of competition on track, with all the world's major contenders eagerly motivated to sharpen their craft in the penultimate season before the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

"Our ultimate goal will always be Milan-Cortina 2026. This season we have to adapt to the new format of the World Tour, pick up the pace and step up a notch in our preparations for the Olympics," Team China's manager Liu Chenyu said last week in Beijing during an open training session.