(KRT)—America got its first long look at short-track speedskating during the 2002 Winter Games. What fans saw was a sport with a roller-derby flavor. There were crashes and controversies. The strategies were inscrutable and so were the rules.
Even the competitors, as exemplified by the soulful-eyed, soul-patched American superstar, Apolo Ohno, seemed a little more exotic than the average Olympic athlete.
Viewers and spectators quickly took a shine to the controlled mayhem of short-track and to the charismatic Ohno, who won a controversial gold and a silver medal at Salt Lake City and became an iconic winter-sports figure.
Four years later, Ohno and short-track will be back at the Turin Games with a much higher profile and a role in a compelling controversy that hasn’t gone away in four years.
“I want to grab some medals,” said Ohno, who became such a favorite at the 2002 Olympics that young female spectators began donning replicas of the wispy soul-patch he sports on his chin.
Ohno will be a threat in all four men’s events—the individual 500, 1,000 and 1,500 and the 5,000-meter relay. His chief rivals figure to come from short-track-mad South Korea, where Ohno, the target of death threats there, is the No.1 sporting villain.
His victory in the 1,500 meters at Salt Lake City came about only after judges disqualified (for obstruction) the South Korean who had finished ahead of the American.
The decision touched off a firestorm of protest in South Korea. Fans bombarded the U.S. Olympic Committee with 15,000 angry e-mails. The death threats kept Ohno away from the Asian nation for more than three years.
When he finally competed there last October, 100 riot policemen met him at the airport.
So look for sparks to fly and blades to flash when Ohno and South Korea’s top skater, Ahn Hyun-Soo, compete in Turin, as they are likely to do in all four events.
Ahn, a three-time world champion, has been the world’s best short-tracker since Salt Lake City. And he is on a mission.
“We think of Ohno as a big rival,” he said. “All the Korean people want me to beat him.”
Those two will provide much of the interest in the competition that otherwise figures to be dominated by the powerful South Korean and Chinese teams. But Canada’s Francois-Louis Trembley, the 2005 world champion at the distance, will be a threat in the 500 meters.
In Italy, partly because of Ohno’s growing appeal, short-track skating has attracted considerable pre-Games buzz.
“I can’t wait,” Ohno said. “It (Italy) is so beautiful, the people, the culture. And we all love the food. It’s going to be spectacular.”
© 2006 The Philadelphia Inquirer
