Posted on 02/21/2010 12:32:12 AM PST by americanophile
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Few thrills, no spills, just a slip in the corner that nearly cost Apolo Anton Ohno a place in history.
Ohno's own mistake dropped him to last place with three laps remaining in the short-track 1,000-meter final Saturday night, trailing the South Koreans and two Canadian brothers.
With the gold and silver out of reach, Ohno scooted furiously past Charles and Francois Hamelin to earn a bronze, making him the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian with seven career medals.
"I really had to fight," he said. "I can't wait to watch the tape and see how I came back from last place to win bronze."
Lee Jung-su of South Korea won his second gold in Vancouver and teammate Lee Ho-suk earned the silver. The Koreans claimed four of the six short track medals awarded.
"Once I advanced to the front, all I could think of was just staying there," Lee Jung-su said through a translator.
Ohno's seventh medal broke a tie with long-track speedskater Bonnie Blair. He now has two gold, two silver and three bronze medals in his three Olympic appearances. The skater from Seattle already earned a silver in the 1,500 last weekend.
"I'm very happy for Apolo's accomplishment," Blair said in a statement from Pacific Coliseum, where she was on hand to watch the race.
"It's a great feat for him, US Speedskating, and the United States of America. We hope that more kids will see his accomplishments and want to try our great sport that has been so good to us and taught us so much about what it takes to be successful in life."
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Great young man. Has a good sense of himself and the world around him.
Just how many “events” can there be in the single sport of short track?
Congratulations to Apolo! He is a great athlete, a great competitor, and seems like a stand-up guy. I do think that this comparison stuff gets a little out of hand, though. A "new record"? Please... Bonnie Blair won five gold medals.
It was incredible! How Ohno managed to stay on his skates and come back to place third showed just what this guy is made of and why he's a great competitor.
Agree, Blair's accomplishments stand on her own. BTW, was it just me, or did she not look too happy when Ohno got his seventh medal? The shot of her in the crowd may have caught her at an 'off' moment .....
This is not his first Olympics.
Well done—but the number of medal opportunities are out of whack with the stature and variance of the sport. Might as well give out 10 medals for curling.
Nor his first dance...;-)
I saw the race. It was a cliff-hanger, watching him drop back to last place and then fighting to come in third.
It was amazing to watch. He went from 2nd to last in almost an instant. This you man is an icon all over the world.
He earned that bronze for sure
500m, 1,000m, 1500m and a relay race of some sort.
Unbelievable. I thought he was out of contention after the slip.
It's NASCAR on ice. ESPN should start covering this sports events.
I said to my hot-tempered son last night...”look! He could have won and he didn’t. He made a mistake and it’s killing him. But what’s that? A smile? His head is held high and he isn’t mad at anyone? How ‘bout that!”
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