Apolo articles

[linmiste]

What a great idea for a thread! I so enjoy reading these. I can't read them all right now, but I loved the second article with Yuki talking about his perspective. Apolo has learned a lot from his father. And speaking of getting out into nature... I definitely don't do enough of that for my son! Hmmm. Loved when Yuki said that we can't make the struggle an excuse for not trying (or something to that effect.) I think that's my problem right there!

I'll try to give karma to all of you who have posted, starting with mntme. Thanks!

[mtnme]

linmiste said:

What a great idea for a thread! I so enjoy reading these. I can't read them all right now, but I loved the second article with Yuki talking about his perspective. Apolo has learned a lot from his father. And speaking of getting out into nature... I definitely don't do enough of that for my son! Hmmm. Loved when Yuki said that we can't make the struggle an excuse for not trying (or something to that effect.) I think that's my problem right there!

I'll try to give karma to all of you who have posted, starting with mntme. Thanks!

Thanks Linmiste for the karma.
You're post really touched me. Whether as a busy wife and mother or as a career woman, I think we all get overwhelmed at times with what is on our plate on any given day. It's so easy to give into exhaustion and become complacent- to the point we don't make that extra effort required just to take care of our own inner spirit.

That is a very large part of why I live where I do. Being able to literally walk out my front door into nature feeds my soul in ways nothing else does. Yuki knows something a lot of people have forgotten. We are natural creatures ourselves. Connecting with nature makes us feel more grounded and a part of the earth - instead of just living "on" it.

My work load is such at the moment that I haven't been getting out into nature as much as I should-and I have certainly seen the difference in my attitude and stress level. We should all make a pact as "sistas" on the GA board to support each other to find that extra energy we need to get past the struggles and excuses to get off our keasters and "Just Do It". Whatever "It" may be.

[number1fan]

linmiste...thank you (more articles coming)
i have a special connection to the ocean...for me there's something about the vastness of it...it puts little ol' me in my place in this great big world.

[number1fan]

OLYMPICS: SHORT-TRACK SPEEDSKATING 2002

Ohno Slides to Silver After Wild Collision Near Finish

By LIZ ROBBINS
Published: February 17, 2002

The Olympic hype machine did not take into account the freakish, near-absurd nature of short-track speedskating that awarded an Olympic gold medal to the slowest and luckiest competitor in the men's 1,000-meter final tonight.

The American Apolo Anton Ohno, who was hoping to win four gold medals in his first Olympics, made an outside pass for the lead with two laps to go and was still in front heading to the final turn, the crowd noise deafening.

With 20 meters to go, disaster struck. Li Jiajun of China tried to pass on the outside, jostling with Ohno as both skaters fought for position. Li bumped into Ahn Hyun Soo of South Korea, who fell and took out Ohno as he tried to move inside.

It was a brazen move by the 16-year-old Ahn, considering there was hardly any room to pass. Not surprisingly, it sent bodies flying.

Ahn went down and took out Ohno and Mathieu Turcotte of Canada. Ohno did a 360-degree spin and crashed into the boards back first.

Steven Bradbury of Australia, who was in last place at the time, skated cleanly past them all to win the race in 1 minute 29.109 seconds. He captured Australia's first Olympic Winter Games gold medal.

Ohno staggered toward the finish line to take the silver. Turcotte slid past the finish line for the bronze. Li was disqualified.

''This was the best race of my life,'' said Ohno, 19, who received six stitches in his left inner thigh. He limped onto the medal stand in the Salt Lake Ice Center and smiled broadly.
''I skated it exactly like I wanted,'' he said. ''Unfortunately I went down in the last corner. But this is the sport I train for. I got the silver medal, so I can't complain.''

Meanwhile, Bradbury, a 28-year-old from Brisbane, Australia, won a bronze medal in the men's 5,000-meter relay in 1994 but was ranked 35th in the world at 1,000 meters.

Bradbury had watched the defending gold medalist, Kim Dong Sung of South Korea, crash in their semifinal heat.

''Obviously I'm feeling absolutely ecstatic that I won the gold medal,'' Bradbury said. ''Obviously I wasn't the fastest skater out here tonight. I went in the race with the tactics to sit back and wait for something to happen. And I was hoping to get a bronze medal.''

Even Bradbury was surprised by the four-skater pile-up.

''I saw a lot of skaters all very close together,'' he said. ''I don't exactly know what happened or how it happened. I saw them on the ice and I said: 'Hang on. This can't be right. I think I won.'

''To have four go down all at once is not something that happens. This is my fourth Olympics. Obviously I had a luck. I won't take the medal as for a race that I won, but a reward for the last 10 years and the effort for myself.''

Bradbury was lucky to even be here. In 1994, skating in a World Cup 1,500 in Montreal, he was impaled by another competitor's skate.

''I had to have 111 stitches and lost four of the six liters of blood that I have,'' Bradbury said. ''I guess I was extremely lucky to survive.''

Ohno, from Seattle, still has 3 more chances, and 2 more individual races to win gold medals in his first Olympics. Turcotte, a second-time Olympian, was thrilled with his bronze medal. He was in fourth place when he crashed.

''It never happened to me before, but it does happen,'' Turcotte said. ''Nobody feels great when it happens, but it happens,'' Turcotte said.

For Ohno, the disruption was more than just in a race. The Australian Bradbury stepped to the medal stand tonight proudly as his national anthem, ''Advance, Australia, Fair,'' blared over the loudspeakers.

In the women's 500 meters final tonight, China's Yang A. Yang captured the gold medal, while Bulgaria's Evgenia Radanova won silver and Wang Chunlu of China won bronze.

Yang and Wang carried a Chinese flag around the rink and broke down in tears as they hugged their coach.

Caroline Hallisey, of Natick, Mass., made it into the 500 final with a couple of thrilling comebacks and a photo finish. But she finished last out of five skaters in the medal race.

Meanwhile, the Olympic career of Amy Peterson came to an end.

Peterson, a five-time Olympian who won a silver at the 1992 Albertville Games and two bronzes at Lillehammer in 1994, was part of the American 3,000 relay team that fell in the semifinals and finished far back.

She made it through the heats of the 500 but finished a distant third in the quarterfinals, crossing the line with her hands on her knees.

query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DEFDB113FF934A25751C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

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This Time, Foul Gives Ohno the Gold

By HARVEY ARATON
Published: February 21, 2002

The wild and crazy sport of short-track speedskating took another strange skid tonight, but this time the controversial and contested result hoisted Apolo Anton Ohno to the gold medal, as opposed to the silver medal he had to win sliding across the finish line in the 1,000 meters Saturday night.

Ohno, the 19-year-old from Seattle with the patch of hair on his chin and the bad-boy reputation coming into Salt Lake City, was awarded his first Olympic gold medal when the first skater to cross the finish line, Kim Dong Sung of South Korea, was disqualified for blocking Ohno's path as they entered the last turn of the 1,500 meters after 13 tight, strategically skated laps.

Kim appeared to shift subtly as Ohno made his late charge after spending most of the race back in the bunched pack of six. Ohno pulled up his arms, as if to demonstrate that he had been impeded. After Kim crossed the line as the apparent winner, the fans at the Salt Lake Ice Center booed. The race officials soon made them happy, giving Ohno the close call.

''I believe it's called cross-tracking,'' Ohno said after dropping to his knees and then hugging his father, Yuki, who raised him alone. ''I wanted to wait as long as possible. There was a lot of traffic. I came out of the corner with great acceleration, came on him real tight, got inside of him, and he just moved over on me, changed my track a little bit.''

Just enough to create one more uproar at an Olympics already roiled in protest. Kim was clearly stunned as he circled the ice carrying the South Korean flag. In a fit of pique not likely to make him a national hero, he slammed the flag down to the ice, picked it up and fired it down again.

The head coach of the South Korean team, Jun Myung Kyu, made some angry allegations afterward and said that he would file a protest with the International Skating Union.

Of Ohno's theatrics, he said, ''He was acting.'' About the referee, James Hewish, Jun said, ''I don't think that judge is up to the level of the Olympic event.''

Jun also said that Kim ''was not impeding any of the skaters'' and that ''Ohno was following him from behind and wasn't at a higher speed.'' He added, ''I told Kim he was champion because he finished the race before Ohno.''

Finally, Jun complained that Ohno and other Americans were being favored here under news media pressure. He said Ohno did not deserve to be portrayed as a victim of overly aggressive Asians, as he was by the American news media after the 1,000 meters. Jun refused to speak with American reporters.

Race officials released a definition of cross-tracking: any move to ''improperly cross the course of, or in any way interfere with another competitor.''

Hewish, who signed off on the decision, is an Australian. It was another Australian, Steven Bradbury, who was the beneficiary of Ohno's misfortune in the 1,000 meters, the last man standing at the finish after Ohno, the leader in the final turn, and the other skaters fell.

Ohno's winning time tonight was 2 minutes 18.541 seconds. Li Jiajun of China won the silver medal, and the bronze went to Canada's Marc Gagnon, the reigning world champion at 1,500 meters, which was being run at the Olympics for the first time.

For Ohno, the wait for the gold probably seemed endless, though it was just four days longer than he initially planned. Americans have been winning medals all over this Wasatch Valley, and, more recently, the gold has been adding up, too.

Ohno was promoted as a potential four-gold American coming into the Games, but that was a reach, given the quality of skaters like Kim and Gagnon, as well as the Nascar nature of this sport.

There were no ill effects, Ohno said, from the six stitches that closed the one-inch gashed he got in the 1,000 meters. This time, Ohno said, he was determined to avoid congestion, as much as can be expected in this roller derby on ice.

It was Bradbury who lost his balance in his quarterfinal heat, as the skaters rounded the last turn. Down he went, skidding to the finish and holding third, finding good fortune from a new position and perspective.

His luck ran out in the semifinals. In the same heat, Ohno bided his time but qualified, finishing second with a late burst of inside speed. Rusty Smith, who will be his teammate Saturday night in the 3,000-meter relay, did not survive the semifinals, finishing third behind Kim and a late-rushing Bruno Loscos of France.

Smith later reported a bad head cold that affected his breathing. ''I was impressed that I got out of bed this morning,'' he said. ''Hopefully, I'll get rid of it before Saturday.''

That is when Ohno will have his chance for two more gold medals, in the 500 meters and in the relay. Whatever the outcomes -- and who is the visionary who would predict them? -- Ohno said he had what he came for.

''I come here, perform my best and get a gold medal,'' he said. ''I'm good now. They can just go throw me in the desert and bury me.''

Not until Sunday, at the earliest.

query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E00E6DF123EF932A15751C0A9649C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/O/Ohno,%20Apolo%20Anton

[number1fan]

OLYMPICS: SHORT-TRACK SPEEDSKATING 2006

Ohno Sees One Slip Away

By KAREN CROUSE
Published: February 13, 2006

TURIN, Italy, Feb. 12 — It was a lighter Apolo Anton Ohno who stepped onto the ice at the Palavela on Sunday to defend his Olympic 1,500-meter title. A strict diet was the tool he used to chisel his body, but in the four years since the Salt Lake Games, Ohno had also shed his bad-boy image and lost his appetite for celebrity.

Kevork Djansezian/Associated Press
Apolo Anton Ohno, right, of the United States stumbled behind China's Li Ye during their semifinal heat in the 1,500 meter speedskating race. Ohno failed to reach the final.

He had one thing left to shed, and that was the label of disputed Olympic champion. If Ohno could sidestep controversy and claim another gold medal by beating a field that included the three-time world champion Ahn Hyun Soo of South Korea, his Olympic legacy would be incontestable.

It did not happen. In a semifinal, Ohno stumbled on the last curve before the bell lap and failed to advance to the "A" final.

In 2002, Ohno crossed the finish line after Kim Dong Sung of South Korea but was awarded the gold medal after Kim was disqualified for illegally blocking Ohno as Ohno tried to pass him toward the frenetic end of the 13½-lap race.

The South Koreans reacted strongly to Kim's disqualification and tried to have it overturned. For a long time afterward, enmity for Ohno simmered in South Korea.

Ahn has succeeded Kim as the fastest skater in the world's foremost short-track speedskating nation. Ahn and Ohno going for the gold promised to be an intriguing storyline. At Salt Lake City, it was contact by Ahn that sent Ohno sprawling in the 1,000-meter final and cost him the gold. He slid across the finish line on his side to salvage the silver.

There would be no controversy Sunday, because there would be no showdown. Ohno won his qualifying heat with ease and had looked satiny smooth in his semifinal right up until the moment he jostled with Li Ye of China.

The top two finishers would move on to the "A" final. Ohno was second, behind Li, but decided not to play it safe. Some people thought he had skated too tentatively in the 1,500-meter final in 2002 after his spill in the 1,000. Determined to rewrite his Olympic history, Ohno went for broke. He skated wide to overtake Li, and they bumped. Ohno's left hand became tangled with Li's skates, and he nearly went sprawling.

"I thought I was in great qualifying position," he said. "I had a bit of contact with the Chinese skater, and it caused me to go too far forward on my skates. I lost a lot of speed, and that was pretty much the end of it."

Ohno somehow regained his balance and finished fourth out of six skaters. Ahn went on to win the gold medal. Another South Korean, Lee Ho Suk, who has not finished lower than third in the event in World Cup competition this season, claimed the silver medal. Li JiaJun of China was third.

The 23-year-old Ohno was left to contemplate what might have been.

"I wanted to make that final," he said. "I've brought everything to the table at these Games. I've prepared myself physically and mentally the best I can. I was really looking forward to trying to get on the podium for the United States."

Ohno's result was the final flake in a snowballing day of disappointment for the United States, which saw the skiers Daron Rahlves and Bode Miller finish out of the medals and the figure skater Michelle Kwan withdraw from the competition with a groin injury.

Ohno thought his night was over, but he was wrong. He was among the skaters who qualified for the "B" final. He almost missed the race, appearing on the ice as the skaters were being introduced. He frantically shed his blade guards and skated to a third-place finish in the "B" final and an eighth-place finish over all.

"I didn't even know I was racing," Ohno said. "I came sprinting out of the locker room with my skates on. They weren't even sharpened."

He was held up near the entrance to the ice by an extra-vigilant security guard.

"They see some crazed skater come onto the ice, they're like, who is this guy?" Ohno said. "It could have been a fan or something."

No, just a former Olympic champion.

"What happened today doesn't change anything that happened four years ago," said Ohno, who will race in three more events. "I still feel like I'm a great skater and an Olympic champion."

His girlfriend, Allison Baver, watched his race from the wings. She had just advanced to the quarterfinals of the women's 500 meters but was in no mood to celebrate.

"It really breaks my heart to see," she said when asked about Ohno's semifinal stumble. "Because I know he's the best skater in the world."

Alex Izykowski of the United States had been eliminated in the semifinal immediately before Ohno's. He watched the race and felt, he said, "the same as the whole country."

And how would that be? "A little disappointed," he said. "He's such a good skater, and he should be on the podium no matter what." He added: "But I don't know. It's short-track. That's what they always say."

www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/sports/olympics/13short.html

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No Fuss or Hard Feelings as Ohno Fades to 3rd

By JOHN ELIGON
Published: February 19, 2006

TURIN, Italy, Feb. 18 — The inevitable question about 2002 was posed to Ahn Hyun Soo during a postrace news conference Saturday night: How upset were the people of South Korea, his home country, four years ago when the American Apolo Anton Ohno was given the gold medal after South Korea's top short-track skater, Kim Dong Sun, was disqualified?

Just as the question was posed, Ohno walked into the room. Ahn and his interpreter chuckled. The interpreter turned her head and said to Ohno, "We were just talking about you."

Ohno grinned, walked to his seat behind the table and gave Ahn two congratulatory pats on the back.

What Ahn went on to say about 2002 was pretty much irrelevant. The exchange had been proof enough that what happened at the Winter Games in Salt Lake City was a thing of the past. A half-hour earlier, Ahn had put to rest any lingering controversy by proving he was the best short-track skater in the world. He took the gold medal in the 1,000 meters at the Palavela, and his teammate Lee Ho Suk won the silver. It was a repeat of their 1-2 finish in the Olympic 1,500 meters a week earlier.

Ohno took the bronze, and — though it was not the ideal outcome — the medal made up for his disappointing eighth-place finish in the 1,500.

"It is all about winning medals and getting on the podium," Ohno said, "but at the same time it's all about overcoming obstacles, whatever they may be. For me, it was coming back and trying to get on this podium tonight. So this is a huge success for what I came here to do."

In the 1,500-meter final at the Salt Lake City Games, Ohno finished behind Kim, who was disqualified for blocking Ohno's path on the last lap.

The South Koreans protested. Ohno received death threats.

Although Ahn said he was not bitter about what had happened to Kim, he seemed happy to have gotten the better of Ohno.

"This time, from the very first preliminary race, I competed against Ohno and I won every time," said Ahn, who set an Olympic record of 1 minute 26.739 seconds. "And that really gives me a special feeling."

Ohno had been on a quest in Turin to prove himself a worthy champion. He had the disputed 2002 gold in the 1,500 meters as well as a silver in the 1,000 in Salt Lake City.

But with his intense focus, Ohno might have gotten the better of himself this time. He said he had not skated comfortably in the 1,500, and it showed. He crashed in the semifinals, ending his hope for a repeat victory. So Ohno said he tried a different approach for Saturday's race. He opened up, relaxed and had fun.

As evidenced by his decision to go into seclusion in a dormitory room in Colorado after the 2002 Games, Ohno usually gains focus through isolation.

But this week, he read e-mail messages, talked to friends and relatives, and listened to advice.

One e-mail message, in particular, stuck out. It read, "Here and now, breathe and relax."

Ohno said, "I had to just kind of back off a little bit and just enjoy skating for what it is and enjoy these Olympic Games."

That, perhaps, is why Ohno did not seem melancholy after he finished third. He raised his hands, but Ohno said he had done so out of astonishment that he had not been able to find room to pass the South Koreans on the bell lap.

As he walked out for the postrace flower ceremony, Ohno waved with both hands and smiled at the many spectators holding American flags.

He was not the only skater the United States fans had to cheer for Saturday night. Rusty Smith finished a respectable fourth after setting an Olympic record in his quarterfinal heat; Ahn broke it in the finals.

It was the final stamp that Ahn put on the evening.

"Three-time world champion," Ohno said when asked what he thought about Ahn.

"The Koreans have always had very strong skaters. For him to add another medal to his collection is very, very impressive. They skated very well tonight."

www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/sports/olympics/19short.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/O/Ohno,%20Apolo%20Anton

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Ohno Captures Gold and Helps Brighten Games for the U.S.

By KAREN CROUSE
Published: February 26, 2006

TURIN, Italy, Feb. 25 — The United States' hope for one last individual medal at these Olympics looked to be its latest failure when Apolo Anton Ohno finished third in his semifinal heat of the 500-meter short-track speedskating Saturday night.

Doug Mills/The New York Times
Apolo Anton Ohno reacted to his victory in the 500 meters.

Vincent Laforet for the New York Times
Apolo Anton Ohno winning the fourth Olympic medal of his career, a gold in the 500 meters.

After two false starts by other skaters, Ohno anticipated the gun perfectly and led from start to finish.

Only the top two finishers would advance to the final. Ohno, who failed to defend his Olympic title in the 1,500 nearly two weeks earlier, circled the track with his hands on his knees as officials huddled to decide if Ohno had been impeded by Li JiaJun of China during the last lap.

Li was disqualified and Ohno salvaged his Olympics — and in some measure, the United States team's — with a golden performance in the final.

The disqualification gave Ohno a second chance, something so many other United States athletes at these Games no doubt longed to have. He then secured the United States' last gold medal convincingly, much the same way the long-track speedskater Chad Hedrick had earned the team's first.

After two false starts by other skaters in the final, Ohno jumped to the lead and staved off François-Louis Tremblay of Canada and Ahn Hyun Soo of South Korea for a wire-to-wire victory. Ohno finished in 41.935 seconds; Tremblay was second in 42.002; and Ahn was third in 42.089.

"I've been searching my entire career for the perfect race," Ohno said, "and that was it."

Never mind that the 500 is not Ohno's best event. But that's short track, as any skater in the sport will say.

Thirty-two minutes after the 500 final, Ohno helped the United States to a bronze medal in the 5,000-meter relay, teaming with Alex Izykowski, J. P. Kepka and Rusty Smith. South Korea won the gold and Canada the silver. Ohno's teammates for the relay also skated in the 2002 Olympics and appeared delighted with their medal.

"To finish the Olympics like this, there is nothing like it," Ohno said.

Ohno improved on his two-medal showing at the Salt Lake Games in 2002. The United States appears all but certain to end up second in the medal standings, with 25, one more than Canada and currently four behind Germany. The only remaining events are the men's hockey final between Sweden and Finland and the men's 50-kilometer cross-country skiing, in which the United States and Canada are unlikely to earn a medal.

Tremblay's silver was Canada's first men's short-track medal of the Games.

Ahn's bronze was the only one of his four medals that was not gold. He was just 0.154 seconds away from becoming the first short-track skater to win four events at a single Olympics. He is the first to win three. (Short track became an Olympic sport in 1992.)

Ohno's gold medal was payback after being beaten by Ahn and Le Ho Suk of South Korea in the 1,000 a week earlier. He effectively beat himself in his signature event, the 1,500, by crashing in the semifinals and failing to advance.

Ohno's stumble was the first misstep in what snowballed into a topsy-turvy Olympics for the United States.

Before the first week was over, Hedrick had proved he was no Eric Heiden on or off the ice; Shani Davis had won one gold medal but had declined to compete in the team pursuit; Bode Miller, after being measured for skiing greatness, had flaunted his mortality; the figure skater Johnny Weir said he had turned black inside while finishing fifth; the women's hockey team had absorbed a historic loss to Sweden in the semifinals; and the snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis had become a lightning rod for criticism after crashing on a risky trick toward the end of her run and being passed for the gold medal by a Swiss racer.

Week 2 was little better: Miller put on an inglorious show; Sasha Cohen turned a golden opportunity in figure skating into a silver medal; and Jeret Peterson, an aerials skier, was sent home after the police said he was involved in a fight outside a bar.

It was against this backdrop that Ohno stepped onto the ice at the Palavela and gave the United States team one of its finest moments of the Games. After crossing the finish line in the 500, he glanced back, raised his arms, clenched his fists and let out a yell.

Ohno then led the United States to a bronze in the 5,000 relay by passing an Italian skater; he had hugs for all his teammates and refused to say whether he would retire. "The Olympic spirit is in my blood now," he said.

As far as Olympic endings go, it was a start.

www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/sports/olympics/26short.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/O/Ohno,%20Apolo%20Anton

[mtnme]

Typical Dave Barry article (meaning totally non-serious, smart aleck) during the 2002 Olympics on watching Shortrack-& for those of us in the know -obviously writing about Apolo's races.
This is meant to be humorous-not dis'-ing our guy. Still a funny read.


Wit's End
Ice Escapades
How the press corps rose to the challenge of short-track speedskating

By Dave Barry
Sunday, April 7, 2002; Page W48

Have you ever wondered how professional journalists cover an international sporting event? Well, too bad, because I'm going to tell you.

In February I spent three weeks at the Winter Olympics in Utah ("Where the Party Never Stops Until 8:30 p.m."). I was part of the press corps swarming around Olympic events in thermal underwear, asking penetrating questions such as: (1) Who won this event? (2) How can you tell? (3) What is this event called again?

As you can see by these questions, the Olympic press corps does not always have a solid grasp on the events it's covering. Take, for example, "short-track speedskating." This is one of those sports that nobody you know has ever heard of, let alone participated in. You suspect that the Olympic organizers invent these sports just to see if they can trick the press corps into covering them. Clearly this was the origin of curling ("I know! Let's have the competitors flail the ice with brooms!" "No! Even the press corps isn't stupid enough to fall for that!").

I spent two nights watching short-track speedskating, and I never did figure it out. It consists of people skating around very fast in a little circle, bent way over, with their faces almost touching the skater directly ahead, looking like performers in a musical extravaganza called "Proctologists on Ice." So far, so good: It appeared to be a race. But almost always, just before the end of the race, most of the competitors would fall down. This happened so often it appeared to be the preferred strategy ("Uh-oh! Finish line coming! Time to fall down!").

So the winner often turned out to be a competitor who, until the end of the race, had not been at all competitive. One much-publicized Olympic short-track event was won by an Australian man who, many eyewitnesses believe, was not even in the race, because it is a known fact that there is no ice in Australia. This man was sitting off to the side, trying to figure out which skate went on which foot, when suddenly the race officials handed him a gold medal.

On those rare occasions when the leading competitors failed to fall down, the apparent winner would cross the finish line, skate around triumphantly for maybe a minute, and then . . . get disqualified. I am serious. In the key races I saw, the officials invariably declared that the winner had violated some rule, and therefore somebody else was the actual winner. Then, no matter who had won, a formal protest would be filed by South Korea, which, as far as I can tell, is the only place in the world that takes this sport seriously.

So imagine you're a journalist covering this event. You watch the big race. At the end, the ice is littered with fallen proctologists. Out of this chaos, a random winner emerges, and is immediately disqualified, at which point the formal South Korean protest is filed. The crowd, 13,000 people, is on its feet, going: "Huh?"

And now you, the journalist, must write a story on this. Step one is to ask the journalists around you if they have any idea what just happened. (This is basic journalism procedure; it's what enables journalists who cannot correctly fill out their mileage reimbursement forms to write stories about the collapse of Enron.)

Once all the journalists have determined, by interviewing one another, that nobody has the faintest clue how short-track speedskating (or Enron) works, it's time for the entire press corps to race downstairs in a mob and interview the participants. The irony is, at least in short-track speedskating, the reporters already know what the participants will say. No matter what question they're asked, they'll shrug and respond: "That's short track!"

This is how they explain everything in their sport -- the falling down, the disqualifications, everything. If an alien spacecraft crashed onto the ice and a 75-foot-high two-headed lobster popped out and sang "My Way," the skaters would shrug and say: "That's short track!"

At this point, you, the journalist, race back to the media workroom, where you risk being decked by microphones wielded by angry roving South Korean TV crews, who are demanding some answers on this gigantic story, which has both North and South Korea on the brink of declaring war on somebody. Somehow you must ignore the bedlam around you and, in minutes, produce your authoritative story, armed with only two facts: (1) Nobody knows what happened; and (2) whatever it was . . . it was short track!

This is the kind of heroic effort that we in the media made night after night at the Winter Olympics, so that the next day's newspaper would have a story that, you, the reader, could ignore, because you don't care about short-track speedskating. Not that you should! It's a minor story, really. Until the missiles start arriving from Seoul.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

[mtnme]

Amusing blurb on Apolo in the first paragraphs! And might I say- LUCKY ZAMBONI MACHINE....
_____________________________________________________

thanks to Noelle (she's the Ohno-informer for everyone!) for digging this one out! I wonder why it didn't surface earlier!!!

By Anand Natarajan Sports Editor

Moments before the 1,500-meter short track speed skating medal ceremony, American speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno had a problem. The 19-year-old was still clad in his razor-sharp skates and skintight body suit, just minutes before he would have to go up and receive his gold medal.
It looked as if Ohno and the several Olympic venue employees assigned to him, including Emory’s own Sports Information Director John Arenberg, had a bit of a logistical quandary on their hands.
And then they spotted a Zamboni sitting unassumingly at one corner of the rink. Without flinching, Ohno grabbed his bag, calmly skated behind the enormous machine, and proceeded to strip out of his uniform and into his proper medal- reception attire.
Arenberg laughs as he recalls the incident, a mischievous grin breaking out on the face of the St. Louis native. “It’s one of those things that you don’t see on television — it’s what’s going on behind the house,” he said.
Fresh off a three-and-a-half week stint as the venue press chief at the Salt Lake Ice Sports Complex practice facility, where the figure skaters and short track skaters prepared for their events, Arenberg still has a twinkle in his eyes that can only come from being a part of one of the largest sporting events in the world.
“On selected nights, I would escort medal winners through the mixed zone [the section between the competition area and the press conference room] past all the P.R. people, the coaches, the other athletes, and the officials to the press conference,” he said. “When we finally got through and made our entrance, all heads in the room would turn and focus on the athletes and there I would be, right in the middle of it all.”
Arenberg’s first experience with the Olympics was in 1996, when the Summer Games were held in Atlanta. The 40-year-old was recruited almost a year in advance to be the competition venue press chief for judo at the Georgia World Congress Center. When this year’s games rolled around, Arenberg used the contacts he had made during the Summer Games to land a coveted position in Salt Lake.
“[Sports information directors] are usually the second layer of individuals who are called upon when the [Olympic] governing body looks to recruit people, with people having international experience in P.R. and previous Olympics being the first layer,” Arenberg said. “In Atlanta, it was a little more stressful, with the bombing and the shootings, but for the most part I felt my position was pretty isolated from the games as a whole.”
Among his many roles at this year’s games, Arenberg had the more involved task of coordinating media and athlete relations, a vital aspect of the success of any sporting event.
“Take ice hockey for example, the men’s semifinals with Canada and United States,” he said. “The stands can only hold 8,600 people, yet I know there were millions upon millions of people around the world who watched it on television, read about it in newspapers and magazines, and listened to it on the radio. The media are the gatekeepers, and the world sees the games through their eyes — when and how they see it.”
In the rare moments where Arenberg had spare time, he would indulge his inner sports fan, meeting athletes and media giants like bronze medalist Michelle Kwan and NBC’s Bob Costas and Katie Couric.
“I remember seeing [sports journalist] Jim McKay; that was it for me — I mean, I grew up watching that guy on TV,” he said.
Arenberg also got to witness firsthand how infectious the Olympic spirit was among the Americans at the Games, saying that it was a privilege just to be able to walk around and soak up the atmosphere.
“I remember the stores that were selling the official Team USA berets made by Roots [makers of the American and Canadian team uniforms] would have lines that were two hours long with people waiting to pay 200 dollars for them,” Arenberg said, shaking his head in feigned disgust. “I personally think they would look silly on anybody wearing one outside the state of Utah.”
Aside from the fanfare and spectacle surrounding the games, Arenberg said the seemingly inconsequential daily routines at the Games meant the most to him.
“We had a running joke how we would have roast beef every day for lunch. No matter what, it would be the same thing every day,” he said. “The day after I got home, I celebrated my return by going out to Athens [Pizza House] for lunch — it’s definitely good to be back home again.”


[

[mtnme]

nwasianweekly.com
May 5, 2007

Photo by Assunta Ng


Apolo Anton Ohno shows off his saucy dance moves with his dance partner on “Dancing With the Stars,” Julianne Hough. They were in Seattle last Thursday for Ohno’s induction into the Asian Hall of Fame.



Ohno’s excellent on & off the ice

By Yoon S. Park
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

What comes to mind when you hear the names Britney, Lindsay or Kobe? It seems hardly a week goes by without some young high-profile celebrity making news with a misstep born of an inflated ego or bad judgment. Apolo Anton Ohno has certainly been making news lately — as a crowd favorite on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.”

Ohno’s candor and ready smile, coupled with a refreshing dose of gratitude to those who have supported his career — most notably his father — charmed those present at the 24-year-old’s recent appearance at Seattle’s Asian Resource Center. Ohno acknowledged the importance of his father’s support in both skating and dancing.

Ohno said his dad told him to just “go for it.”

Given his extraordinary speed-skating career, one would expect Ohno, who is originally from Federal Way, to be resting on his laurels. However, with a dogged determination befitting that of a two-time (going on three-time) Olympic athlete with five Olympic medals, he continues to collect accolades from judges and fans for the quality of his ballroom dancing with dance partner Julianne Hough. Ohno and Hough, who accompanied Ohno to Seattle, became the first couple to receive a perfect score this season and are among the favorites to win the competition.

Thankfully, Ohno’s talents translate well to the dance floor, as they “only have about three to four days to learn a new routine,” he said last Thursday evening at a news conference. He confessed that he found speed skating to be much tougher than ballroom dancing.

When asked if dancing helps his skating at all, he explained with amusement that one of his coaches from Korea thought it would help him by relaxing his skating.

Ohno went on to say that he is “too serious, too focused” as he trains for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, B.C. Dancing, he said, has become a form of self-expression.

Prompted by a photographer from the Northwest Asian Weekly, he and Hough even demonstrated a few of their dance moves at the news conference.

Ohno was in town April 26 to be inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame. Organized by the Seattle-based Robert Chinn Foundation, the Asian Hall of Fame honors “Asian Americans who have contributed to their heritage by breaking new ground or achieving excellence in their fields at both a national and international level.” Past inductees include former Gov. Gary Locke and the late artist George Tsutakawa.

Attorney, businesswoman and Filipino American leader Loida Nicolas Lewis was the other honoree that evening.

For Ohno, it’s significant that the Asian Hall of Fame award is not limited to any one ethnicity. He said he appreciates that it is not just for those of Japanese descent or any other group. It is the Asian Hall of Fame, “with no boundaries,” Ohno noted.

His success in the sports arena and popularity on “Dancing With the Stars” have certainly opened other doors for Ohno. He has received movie scripts and other acting opportunities, as well as offers to be a spokesperson for various products. Not surprising when you consider that the viewership of “Dancing,” according to Ohno, is larger than the Super Bowl’s.

As he looks to the future, Ohno, who is based in Colorado Springs, Colo., where the U.S. Olympic Training Center is located, expresses a desire to return to Seattle. He appreciates the area and what it has to offer, like rainbows.

He also wants to form his own foundation one day. Its focus will probably be youth and sports.

Yoon S. Park can be reached at [e-mail].

[mtnme]

Link to very cool article and drawings on Apolo and speedskating that I'm too much of a computer illiterate to get it to copy and paste. check it out. Any of you can figure this out, feel free!

www.oregonlive.com/pdfs/sports/ohno.pdf

[christi]

number1fan said:

OLYMPICS: SHORT-TRACK SPEEDSKATING 2006

Ohno Sees One Slip Away

By KAREN CROUSE
Published: February 13, 2006

TURIN, Italy, Feb. 12 — It was a lighter Apolo Anton Ohno who stepped onto the ice at the Palavela on Sunday to defend his Olympic 1,500-meter title. A strict diet was the tool he used to chisel his body, but in the four years since the Salt Lake Games, Ohno had also shed his bad-boy image and lost his appetite for celebrity.

Kevork Djansezian/Associated Press
Apolo Anton Ohno, right, of the United States stumbled behind China's Li Ye during their semifinal heat in the 1,500 meter speedskating race. Ohno failed to reach the final.

He had one thing left to shed, and that was the label of disputed Olympic champion. If Ohno could sidestep controversy and claim another gold medal by beating a field that included the three-time world champion Ahn Hyun Soo of South Korea, his Olympic legacy would be incontestable.

It did not happen. In a semifinal, Ohno stumbled on the last curve before the bell lap and failed to advance to the "A" final.

In 2002, Ohno crossed the finish line after Kim Dong Sung of South Korea but was awarded the gold medal after Kim was disqualified for illegally blocking Ohno as Ohno tried to pass him toward the frenetic end of the 13½-lap race.

The South Koreans reacted strongly to Kim's disqualification and tried to have it overturned. For a long time afterward, enmity for Ohno simmered in South Korea.

Ahn has succeeded Kim as the fastest skater in the world's foremost short-track speedskating nation. Ahn and Ohno going for the gold promised to be an intriguing storyline. At Salt Lake City, it was contact by Ahn that sent Ohno sprawling in the 1,000-meter final and cost him the gold. He slid across the finish line on his side to salvage the silver.

There would be no controversy Sunday, because there would be no showdown. Ohno won his qualifying heat with ease and had looked satiny smooth in his semifinal right up until the moment he jostled with Li Ye of China.

The top two finishers would move on to the "A" final. Ohno was second, behind Li, but decided not to play it safe. Some people thought he had skated too tentatively in the 1,500-meter final in 2002 after his spill in the 1,000. Determined to rewrite his Olympic history, Ohno went for broke. He skated wide to overtake Li, and they bumped. Ohno's left hand became tangled with Li's skates, and he nearly went sprawling.

"I thought I was in great qualifying position," he said. "I had a bit of contact with the Chinese skater, and it caused me to go too far forward on my skates. I lost a lot of speed, and that was pretty much the end of it."

Ohno somehow regained his balance and finished fourth out of six skaters. Ahn went on to win the gold medal. Another South Korean, Lee Ho Suk, who has not finished lower than third in the event in World Cup competition this season, claimed the silver medal. Li JiaJun of China was third.

The 23-year-old Ohno was left to contemplate what might have been.

"I wanted to make that final," he said. "I've brought everything to the table at these Games. I've prepared myself physically and mentally the best I can. I was really looking forward to trying to get on the podium for the United States."

Ohno's result was the final flake in a snowballing day of disappointment for the United States, which saw the skiers Daron Rahlves and Bode Miller finish out of the medals and the figure skater Michelle Kwan withdraw from the competition with a groin injury.

Ohno thought his night was over, but he was wrong. He was among the skaters who qualified for the "B" final. He almost missed the race, appearing on the ice as the skaters were being introduced. He frantically shed his blade guards and skated to a third-place finish in the "B" final and an eighth-place finish over all.

"I didn't even know I was racing," Ohno said. "I came sprinting out of the locker room with my skates on. They weren't even sharpened."

He was held up near the entrance to the ice by an extra-vigilant security guard.

"They see some crazed skater come onto the ice, they're like, who is this guy?" Ohno said. "It could have been a fan or something."

No, just a former Olympic champion.

"What happened today doesn't change anything that happened four years ago," said Ohno, who will race in three more events. "I still feel like I'm a great skater and an Olympic champion."

His girlfriend, Allison Baver, watched his race from the wings. She had just advanced to the quarterfinals of the women's 500 meters but was in no mood to celebrate.

"It really breaks my heart to see," she said when asked about Ohno's semifinal stumble. "Because I know he's the best skater in the world."

Alex Izykowski of the United States had been eliminated in the semifinal immediately before Ohno's. He watched the race and felt, he said, "the same as the whole country."

And how would that be? "A little disappointed," he said. "He's such a good skater, and he should be on the podium no matter what." He added: "But I don't know. It's short-track. That's what they always say."

www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/sports/olympics/13short.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No Fuss or Hard Feelings as Ohno Fades to 3rd

By JOHN ELIGON
Published: February 19, 2006

TURIN, Italy, Feb. 18 — The inevitable question about 2002 was posed to Ahn Hyun Soo during a postrace news conference Saturday night: How upset were the people of South Korea, his home country, four years ago when the American Apolo Anton Ohno was given the gold medal after South Korea's top short-track skater, Kim Dong Sun, was disqualified?

Just as the question was posed, Ohno walked into the room. Ahn and his interpreter chuckled. The interpreter turned her head and said to Ohno, "We were just talking about you."

Ohno grinned, walked to his seat behind the table and gave Ahn two congratulatory pats on the back.

What Ahn went on to say about 2002 was pretty much irrelevant. The exchange had been proof enough that what happened at the Winter Games in Salt Lake City was a thing of the past. A half-hour earlier, Ahn had put to rest any lingering controversy by proving he was the best short-track skater in the world. He took the gold medal in the 1,000 meters at the Palavela, and his teammate Lee Ho Suk won the silver. It was a repeat of their 1-2 finish in the Olympic 1,500 meters a week earlier.

Ohno took the bronze, and — though it was not the ideal outcome — the medal made up for his disappointing eighth-place finish in the 1,500.

"It is all about winning medals and getting on the podium," Ohno said, "but at the same time it's all about overcoming obstacles, whatever they may be. For me, it was coming back and trying to get on this podium tonight. So this is a huge success for what I came here to do."

In the 1,500-meter final at the Salt Lake City Games, Ohno finished behind Kim, who was disqualified for blocking Ohno's path on the last lap.

The South Koreans protested. Ohno received death threats.

Although Ahn said he was not bitter about what had happened to Kim, he seemed happy to have gotten the better of Ohno.

"This time, from the very first preliminary race, I competed against Ohno and I won every time," said Ahn, who set an Olympic record of 1 minute 26.739 seconds. "And that really gives me a special feeling."

Ohno had been on a quest in Turin to prove himself a worthy champion. He had the disputed 2002 gold in the 1,500 meters as well as a silver in the 1,000 in Salt Lake City.

But with his intense focus, Ohno might have gotten the better of himself this time. He said he had not skated comfortably in the 1,500, and it showed. He crashed in the semifinals, ending his hope for a repeat victory. So Ohno said he tried a different approach for Saturday's race. He opened up, relaxed and had fun.

As evidenced by his decision to go into seclusion in a dormitory room in Colorado after the 2002 Games, Ohno usually gains focus through isolation.

But this week, he read e-mail messages, talked to friends and relatives, and listened to advice.

One e-mail message, in particular, stuck out. It read, "Here and now, breathe and relax."

Ohno said, "I had to just kind of back off a little bit and just enjoy skating for what it is and enjoy these Olympic Games."

That, perhaps, is why Ohno did not seem melancholy after he finished third. He raised his hands, but Ohno said he had done so out of astonishment that he had not been able to find room to pass the South Koreans on the bell lap.

As he walked out for the postrace flower ceremony, Ohno waved with both hands and smiled at the many spectators holding American flags.

He was not the only skater the United States fans had to cheer for Saturday night. Rusty Smith finished a respectable fourth after setting an Olympic record in his quarterfinal heat; Ahn broke it in the finals.

It was the final stamp that Ahn put on the evening.

"Three-time world champion," Ohno said when asked what he thought about Ahn.

"The Koreans have always had very strong skaters. For him to add another medal to his collection is very, very impressive. They skated very well tonight."

www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/sports/olympics/19short.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/O/Ohno,%20Apolo%20Anton

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ohno Captures Gold and Helps Brighten Games for the U.S.

By KAREN CROUSE
Published: February 26, 2006

TURIN, Italy, Feb. 25 — The United States' hope for one last individual medal at these Olympics looked to be its latest failure when Apolo Anton Ohno finished third in his semifinal heat of the 500-meter short-track speedskating Saturday night.

Doug Mills/The New York Times
Apolo Anton Ohno reacted to his victory in the 500 meters.

Vincent Laforet for the New York Times
Apolo Anton Ohno winning the fourth Olympic medal of his career, a gold in the 500 meters.

After two false starts by other skaters, Ohno anticipated the gun perfectly and led from start to finish.

Only the top two finishers would advance to the final. Ohno, who failed to defend his Olympic title in the 1,500 nearly two weeks earlier, circled the track with his hands on his knees as officials huddled to decide if Ohno had been impeded by Li JiaJun of China during the last lap.

Li was disqualified and Ohno salvaged his Olympics — and in some measure, the United States team's — with a golden performance in the final.

The disqualification gave Ohno a second chance, something so many other United States athletes at these Games no doubt longed to have. He then secured the United States' last gold medal convincingly, much the same way the long-track speedskater Chad Hedrick had earned the team's first.

After two false starts by other skaters in the final, Ohno jumped to the lead and staved off François-Louis Tremblay of Canada and Ahn Hyun Soo of South Korea for a wire-to-wire victory. Ohno finished in 41.935 seconds; Tremblay was second in 42.002; and Ahn was third in 42.089.

"I've been searching my entire career for the perfect race," Ohno said, "and that was it."

Never mind that the 500 is not Ohno's best event. But that's short track, as any skater in the sport will say.

Thirty-two minutes after the 500 final, Ohno helped the United States to a bronze medal in the 5,000-meter relay, teaming with Alex Izykowski, J. P. Kepka and Rusty Smith. South Korea won the gold and Canada the silver. Ohno's teammates for the relay also skated in the 2002 Olympics and appeared delighted with their medal.

"To finish the Olympics like this, there is nothing like it," Ohno said.

Ohno improved on his two-medal showing at the Salt Lake Games in 2002. The United States appears all but certain to end up second in the medal standings, with 25, one more than Canada and currently four behind Germany. The only remaining events are the men's hockey final between Sweden and Finland and the men's 50-kilometer cross-country skiing, in which the United States and Canada are unlikely to earn a medal.

Tremblay's silver was Canada's first men's short-track medal of the Games.

Ahn's bronze was the only one of his four medals that was not gold. He was just 0.154 seconds away from becoming the first short-track skater to win four events at a single Olympics. He is the first to win three. (Short track became an Olympic sport in 1992.)

Ohno's gold medal was payback after being beaten by Ahn and Le Ho Suk of South Korea in the 1,000 a week earlier. He effectively beat himself in his signature event, the 1,500, by crashing in the semifinals and failing to advance.

Ohno's stumble was the first misstep in what snowballed into a topsy-turvy Olympics for the United States.

Before the first week was over, Hedrick had proved he was no Eric Heiden on or off the ice; Shani Davis had won one gold medal but had declined to compete in the team pursuit; Bode Miller, after being measured for skiing greatness, had flaunted his mortality; the figure skater Johnny Weir said he had turned black inside while finishing fifth; the women's hockey team had absorbed a historic loss to Sweden in the semifinals; and the snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis had become a lightning rod for criticism after crashing on a risky trick toward the end of her run and being passed for the gold medal by a Swiss racer.

Week 2 was little better: Miller put on an inglorious show; Sasha Cohen turned a golden opportunity in figure skating into a silver medal; and Jeret Peterson, an aerials skier, was sent home after the police said he was involved in a fight outside a bar.

It was against this backdrop that Ohno stepped onto the ice at the Palavela and gave the United States team one of its finest moments of the Games. After crossing the finish line in the 500, he glanced back, raised his arms, clenched his fists and let out a yell.

Ohno then led the United States to a bronze in the 5,000 relay by passing an Italian skater; he had hugs for all his teammates and refused to say whether he would retire. "The Olympic spirit is in my blood now," he said.

As far as Olympic endings go, it was a start.

www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/sports/olympics/26short.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/O/Ohno,%20Apolo%20Anton

I love to relive Apolo's win in the 500m. I remember when he won gold for that event and the look of such joy for winning as you can see in those pictures. I remember being so happy for him when he won that medal.

[number1fan]

Saturday, February 23, 2002
Apolo's great name sucked us into short track

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Jim Caple
ESPN.com

SALT LAKE CITY -- You know why we were expected to care about short track speedskating in the first place? Because the top American is named Apolo.

Really, that's the only reason. Short track has been in the Olympics for quite a while, and it normally receives less attention than curling. Even by Winter Olympics standards it is obscure. It is usually the sport (and I use that term charitably) held at the figure skating venue that nobody cares about and nobody covers.

Apolo Anton Ohno became a fan favorite, but where were those fans for Amy Peterson or Cathy Turner?

But this time we were supposed to care. Because this time there was an American with a great name, Apolo Anton Ohno, and a soul patch that made him look like the coolest thing this side of Shaggy (the musician, not the Scooby-Doo character). He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated's Olympic preview issue even though the magazine didn't pick him to win a single gold medal (and they were almost right).

Wow, his name is APOLO. Cool! I can't wait until his GameBoy comes out.

So suddenly short track is the hip sport. Suddenly Michele Kwan is sitting in the stands with a fake soul patch under her lip. Suddenly there are more reporters crowded into the mixed zone than in the Sizzler buffet line.

But nobody would care if Ohno's first name was Pete or Steve or Kelly. Don't believe me? Well, there are two U.S. skaters with bland names like Amy (Peterson) and Cathy (Turner) who won seven medals in short track in past Olympics, and I don't remember them ever showing up on SI's cover. Heck, I barely remember Peterson even appearing in her hometown paper.

People whine about figure skating not being a real sport but at least figure skating is upfront about the fact that it relies on biased judges. Short track wants you to believe that it is a pure sport decided only by the clock but that's nonsense.

Just review Ohno's past five races.

In his final race at the U.S. trials, he was accused of tanking the race so his friend could make the Olympic team (a charge later dismissed as unfounded by a U.S. Olympic Committee arbiter). In his first race In Salt Lake, there was a three-car pileup on the final turn and the last-place skater won the gold medal while everyone else crawled on the ice for second and third. In his next race, the winning skater was disqualified for cross-tracking, prompting a protest from the Korean delegation, an arbitration case and death threats.

In his next race, the 500 meters Saturday, Ohno was disqualified for impeding another skater. In his final race, the relay, three of the four teams fell down, giving Canada an easy gold.

So, if you're keeping score, that's five races, two disqualifications, two arbitration cases, one three-car pileup, multiple individual spills and not a single clean race.

Great sport, huh?

Dan Jansen falls in the traditional long track and he weeps like a figure skater in the Kiss and Cry zone. Ohno falls in short track and he smiles broadly while shrugging it all off as no big deal. After all, that's just short track

How do I know? Because all the short track skaters keep telling us so.

"People asked me about all the disqualifications before and I said, 'That's short track,' " U.S skater Dan Weinstein said. "And that's all I can say now. That's short track."

Oddly, short track skaters don't have much problem with the arbitrary nature of their sport. They're too used to it. "I'm not disappointed at all. I have a silver and gold," said Ohno after not winning a medal Saturday. "It would have been nice to pick up another one, sure, but with short track being such a crazy sport, you could run the same race twice and have two different winners."

In other words, "That's short track."

Of course, there is a reason "That's short track" is the standard response skaters use after these races. It sounds better than, "Our sport really is ridiculous, isn't it?" or "If I wanted to be in a real sport, I'd be in long track but the people here listen to better music and have better names."

Jim Caple is a senior writer at ESPN.com

[number1fan]

Sports: Sunday, December 29, 2002

2002 headliners: Apolo Ohno went from little-known to splashed in flashbulbs
By Ron C. Judd
Seattle Times staff reporter

When the world is watching, blink-of-an-eye reactions have life-long consequences.

Nobody personifies that reality more than Seattle native Apolo Anton Ohno, 20 — short-track speedskater turned international heartthrob.

In one of the most indelible images of February's Salt Lake Winter Olympics, Ohno's gracious, center-ice prayer of thanks for winning a gold medal stood in stark contrast to the angry fit being thrown by disqualified competitor Kim Dong-sung of South Korea just yards away.

Before he had a chance to even consider the ramifications, Ohno was vaulted into an alternate-universe world of stardom he could scarcely have imagined when his father, Yuki, thrust the youngster into skates to keep him off the streets of Federal Way years ago. Ohno's double-medal Salt Lake performance boosted him from a little-known performer of an obscure sport to a young man in need of full-blown bodyguard protection.

The three months following the February games were a media whirl. Chicago, L.A., New York, you name it. Ohno burned a trail between the largest media markets, appearing on every imaginable TV talk show, hitting the country's hippest night spots, cavorting on "Superstars," and still appearing in Olympic-related charity events. His engagement book remains overfull.

When Ohno walked into the media tent at an event in New York recently, the blinding, movie-star flash of photographers flabbergasted Yuki, who laughed and tried to document the entire scene with his own camera, set to wide angle.

So sudden and bright were the lights that many of us wondered: Will Apolo ever step back on the ice?

He has. With a vengeance. After that three-month hiatus, Ohno, whose free time is now essentially nonexistent, returned to training in Colorado Springs, where he continues to live while taking online college courses.

Much to the disappointment of a lot of angry people in Seoul, the U.S. team skipped the first two short-track World Cup races in Korea and China. But when they began their schedule with World Cup events in Europe, Ohno appeared to be his old, indomitable self.

He won the overall title at a World Cup event in St. Petersburg, Russia, early this month, winning the 3,000 meters and finishing second behind China's Jiajun Li in the 1,000.

A week later in Bormio, Italy, he repeated the feat, winning the 1,000 and posting a second in the 3,000.

He appears near the top of his competitive game — impressive, given the demands on his time, his relieved father says.

"It was an important mental victory to maintain his domain," Yuki says. "Everybody has been gunning for him, knowing that he hadn't trained as much."

Ohno plans to spend the coming three years attempting to balance training and traveling, all with a new goal in mind: the 2006 Winter Games in Italy.

"He's committed," his father says. "It's only 3-1/2 years away."

Since your daughter asked: Ohno appears to have no serious significant other. Yuki knows better than to ask, but "when reporters asked him in Italy, he said no. It's hard to have a relationship when you're that busy."

Ohno's schedule for early 2003 reveals, in a nutshell, the crazy mishmash his life has become: In early February, he'll compete in the season's only U.S. World Cup stop in Salt Lake City. Later, he'll race at a World Cup event in Quebec. In March, it's on to Poland for the World Championships.

And sometime between: "Hollywood Squares."

[number1fan]

enjoy these very old articles of 'our boy'...what a doll!



www.ohnozone.net/archives/050327c.jpg page 1
www.ohnozone.net/archives/050327d.jpg page 2


www.ohnozone.net/archives/050327b.jpg

[mtnme]

Welcoming winter with the stars
Elite athletes an Parkites joint o raise money for youth winter sports at Jans Winter Welcome
Adia Waldburger, of the Record staff
Article Launched: 10/30/2007 04:30:33 PM MDT


Speedskating darling Apolo Ohno is all smiles at Jans Winter Welcome. «1»


There may not have been any ballroom dancing at the 27th annual Jans Winter Welcome, held at the Silver Lake Lodge in Deer Valley on Saturday night, but the speedskaters still took center stage.
Olympic gold medallist Derek Parra led the festivities, serving as master of ceremonies for the fundraiser's main event, the live auction.

"I'm just hoping to have some fun," Parra said before the auction. "I'm a people person."

Fellow gold-medal winner Eric Heiden did his part, contributing a unique package, which gave the highest bidder the chance to train like a Tour de France star.

But the bonified star of the evening was speedskater and Dancing With the Stars winner Apolo Ohno, who made his first-ever appearance at the affair. Ohno said he came as a guest to observe what the evening was all about and orient himself to Park City. The skater and dancer is planning to move to Utah soon to join the rest of the U.S. Short Track Speedskating Team, which recently moved to the Salt Lake area.

Jans Winter Welcome, which raises money for the Youth WinterSports Alliance to give local youth more opportunities to enjoy and excel in winter sports, broke the evening into a number of different parts. Different rooms housed bronze-, silver- and gold-level silent auctions. And for every taste bud, other rooms had hors d' oeuvres, cocktails, a main course and an extensive dessert table.

But the focus of the evening was the live auction. The main event offered party goers the opportunity to ski with legends, golf in Sedona, Arizona, fly fish in Alaska or even have a group of firefighters cook a private meal. Another was Heiden's cycling camp, which will mimic the Pyrenees-to-Alps stage of the Tour de France. Heiden and his medical partner, Max Testa, offered a similar camp last summer that had considerable success. The package includes testing, educational talks and other benefits, all in the mountains of Park city.

"It's a place that people come from all over to cycle in," Heiden said.

With the banter and enthusiasm of Parra and auctioneer Larry Flynn, would-be bidders received full-package descriptions, celebrity guest appearances and constant encouragement before entering their five-figure bids. Parra began with a heart-warming story of the generosity of his own community, which helped him become a star in roller skating and later speedskating. The story helped the crowd understand the importance of the Winter Welcome.

"On the Olympic podium, I saw all of the people that helped me," Parra said. "That's what the night is all about. It's the passion of helping a future Olympian get to the next level."

The evening wrapped up with cigars and coffee drinks on the Silver Lake patio on Adirondack chairs painted by members of each of the teams in the Youth Winter Sports Alliance.

According to Youth Winter Sports Alliance Executive Director Shelley Gillwald, it was a successful year on par with where she had hoped it would be in terms of monies raised.

"I just continue to be amazed at how generous people were in the community," Gillwald said. "From the sponsors like Bill White Enterprises, to the major donors who purchased tables and buy the auction items, down to the retailers and restaurants that provide items, and the people who purchase the drawing tickets down to the volunteers."

Gillwald says it takes well over a thousand people to make the event successful.

It is huge effort to put it on, "she said "I continue to be truly touched by all that people do people do to help junior athletes in this community."

With an Alpine World Cup held in Austria this weekend, the event was without a number of the famous athletes like Ted Ligety that highlighted the affair last year. Still, a number of other Olympic and elite athletes joined in the event, including the U.S Luge Team. Despite being based in Lake Placid, N.Y., the sliders were in town to begin a week-long training session at the Utah Olympic Park track. Olympian and native Utahn Preston Griffall, a doubles luge athlete, said he remembered working at the event as a junior athlete.

"I came to a couple of these," he said. "I actually helped out to escort attendees into the event."

It's those kind of full-circle stories that Jan's Winter Welcome hopes to tap into for years to come.

"I've seen what sports can do," Heiden said. "This event is helping kids who live here."

[skaterswaltz]

number1fan said:

enjoy these very old articles of 'our boy'...what a doll!



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number1fan - thank you so much. These are wonderful articles. It is hard to believe Apolo was only 14 years old when he did these interviews. Now I get it - he has always been this poised, determined and focused. It is hard to believe the Olympics were years away and what was in store for him. Yuki is an amazing man to be able to inspire this young man who was bouncing off the walls with energy all the time. Apolo said, "My Dad says I excel with more challenges." Yuki sure got that right and Apolo owned that challenge. Yuki needs to write a book about mentoring and inspiring people. I sure would buy a copy! And I wish Apolo would do an update to his book. I've read it quite a few times already and I would be very interested in his take on his life since 2002. Maybe in 2010?