Avenue is better than time, as long as you skate fast. The only physical contact is when you change lanes inside and outside (Ye Qiaobo was hacked for changing lanes for a gold medal).
Compared with people, short track has absolute speed, route control, tactics and so on. Starting to grab the position, overtaking in the middle and overtaking in the corner all need to change the speed constantly. Variable speed consumes more energy than constant speed.
The main road is a straight line+semi-circle track, and the short circuit is an ellipse, so short circuit to the main road has an advantage in accelerating cornering, so there is no need to worry about the interference of people behind. Apart from the absolute speed advantage, there is nothing too obvious to turn the main road into a short circuit.
At present, I know Xu Hongzhi, a relay member of PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Xu Hongzhi's main event is relay, usually the third or first stick. He won the 500-year World Youth Championship, and his lap speed is very good. He is called a 170 meter runner, and he is called a relay raider if he can't lose the stick and can surpass and keep it. But his endurance is not good,1500m often falls first.