SINGAPORE - National short-track speed skaters Lucas Ng and Cheyenne Goh made it past the heats of their respective 500m events at the Asian Winter Games on Tuesday, but did not progress past the quarter-finals stage.

Both, however, finished as the top South-east Asians in Sapporo, putting them in good stead ahead of this year's SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur.

Ng, 29, the Republic's only athlete with prior experience on this stage, clocked 45.115sec in the heats to qualify for the heats, where he posted 46.432sec to finish fourth in his quarter-final. Seo Yi Ra (41.482sec) and Park Se Yeong (41.569sec) both clocked Asian records to make the semi-final.

His result puts him 16th out of 39 skaters in the men's 500m event.

Team-mate Cheyenne also had a creditable outing, clocking 50.878sec in her heats before a 49.227sec in the quarter-finals. She finished third in her quarter-final, behind eventual champion Zang Yize of China and bronze medallist Choi Min Jeong of South Korea.

The 17-year-old finished 11th out of 25 skaters overall in this event.

Said Ng: "My techniques and speed are definitely better now than in 2011. I was able to keep pace with many of the skaters and execute certain techniques learnt during training as well.

"But I will have to train harder and gain even more competition experience to race alongside world-class skaters."

Both Ng and Cheyenne are slated to compete in the 1,000m event on Wednesday.