China advanced to the semifinals of the women's 3,000-meter relay at the International Skating Union (ISU) Short Track Speed Skating World Tour in the Netherlands on Thursday.

The event is also the final stop of the Olympic qualifiers. Gong Li, Wang Xinran, Zhang Chutong and Fan Kexin made the Chinese squad. They were third at the start with veteran Fan speeding up to move her team to second place.

With 11 laps remaining, Fan moved up from the inside and took the lead. Wang then avoided a collision between the USA and the Netherlands on the outer lane for China to remain in the leading spot.

However, on the penultimate lap, China were overtaken by the Dutch outfit before finishing second in the group with a time of 4:11.306.

In the 2,000m mixed team relay, Sun Long, Lin Xiaojun joined Wang and Fan in reaching the semifinals. China and Italy sprinted to the finish line neck and neck and it needed to be decided via a photo finish, China came second in 2:41.531 to reach the last four. Italy were just 0.001 second ahead to come first.