Word: racing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Consider his performance Saturday night. In Ohno's quarterfinal heat, he sat in third place for most of the race (the top two finishers advance to the next round). With the other skaters crowded together in front of him - the athletes are so bunched up while circling around the 111-meter track, it looks like they're competing in somebody's kitchen - Ohno's quest was in serious danger. But his patience and mental acuity finally paid off. Ohno spotted an opening, and quickly slipped past Germany's Tyson Heung. If you looked down to take a sip of your...
...again, he floated to the outside, then zipped inside past another skater. How he didn't scrape the blocks and get disqualified was a miracle. And in the finals, he was ensconced in second place with two and a half laps to go. "In my head I thought the race was mine," he says. Then he slipped and fell from second to fifth but summoned the strength and speed to recover from this seemingly disastrous error, and finished third to win the bronze...
...clinching his seventh medal, Ohno turned in a clutch performance. On the whole, however, Ohno has been extraordinarily lucky in the Olympics. During the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, Kim Dong-sung from South Korea crossed the finish line first in the 1,500-meter race. Ohno trailed behind him, and finished second. After Dong-sung started waving the Korean flag during his victory lap, the judges disqualified him for blocking Ohno. South Korea was furious, and took out their frustration on the American. Ohno received death threats. (Watch a video of future Olympians in Vancouver...
South Korea's anti-Ohno sentiment was rekindled in Vancouver. In the 1,500-meter race on Feb. 13, two South Koreans skaters crashed on the last turn, allowing Ohno to move past them into second place. Afterward, Ohno said he might have won gold if the winner, South Korea's Lee Jung-Su, hadn't obstructed him. The Koreans accused Ohno of playing dirty. "Ohno didn't deserve to stand on the same medal platform as me," said Lee. When asked Saurday night if she liked Ohno, A Reum Han, a skating fan who traveled from Soeul...
After Saturday's race, I asked Ohno if he felt, in his mind, like he was the greatest Winter Olympian of all-time. He dodged. "That's a very hard question," he said. "How do you answer that? ... I never came into these Olympic games trying to break records. I do this sport because I love it. My goal here was to pour my heart and soul into these Olympic games. I have no regrets...