Ohno Zone >
Apolo Anton Ohno Interview, June
2004
Part 1: The off-season and summer plans
OZ: How has your
off-season gone so far, Apolo? Are you training now?
AAO:
The
off-season has been going very well for me.
I’m
doing some new training… I did a lot of studying over the summer
about training, about physical conditioning, mental conditioning.
Right now I’m just having fun. The off-season is always the best time to
train in Colorado.
The weather is usually so
nice. It’s a fun time to really grind and put some work in. I’m having a
good off-season. It’s a lot better than last year. I’m happy so
far!
Are you on the ice much?
Not much. I've always wanted to skate more in the
summer, but sometimes there aren’t
funds available, or depending on who the coach is, they don’t want us skating too
much. We’re skating about once a week right now.
Have you taken any time off from training just to
relax?
I
took a little time off. I was disappointed with my results from Worlds.
But I usually don’t take too much time off. I try to stay in good shape
throughout the whole season. Mentally, though, I just relax -- I don’t have
to worry about getting up at 6:30 in the morning and doing the whole
routine.
How did you celebrate your 22nd birthday
[on May 22]?
I went and did the Incline here – I was training.
The Incline is part of this cog
railroad, very old… a lot of Colorado natives and athletes know what the
Incline is. If people ever come to Colorado you can see it, it’s like a
strip of dirt that goes straight up the mountain… It’s pretty steep, it’s
a good workout. That was my birthday! It was a pretty normal day.
Talk about your plans for August when you'll be visiting Air
Force bases in Europe. How did that come about? What will you be doing on
your visits?
Mostly
it’s going to be a meet and greet with the troops and their families.
I know some celebrities are gonna be there. It’s going to be kinda
cool. When it came up, I immediately thought, ‘This is kind of a cool experience,
to be able to go support the troops and visit parts of Europe.’ It should
be an awesome time.
I bet you’ve never been to Europe in the
summer.
No! [laughs]
Is there any truth to the rumor that you will make an
appearance in Athens during the Summer Games?
I hope so. That would be awesome.
Hopefully I can...maybe see a couple of events and be an outsider kind of looking
in at the Olympics, in a sense. 'Cause even when the Summer Games roll around,
everybody here, including myself, gets really excited about the Games. It's
so powerful. I see a lot of my friends here at the training center who
trained for Athens, I see them make the team. It’s really awesome to see,
because I’ve seen them work hard for the past four years, I’ve seen them
improve.
Do you have any other appearances planned in the States that we
should know about?
Well there’s a couple, but they’re not finalized yet. Some of them are
for the summer. I’m trying to limit some things. Hopefully some things
back home in Seattle. I haven’t been to California in a while, so
hopefully some things in California. We’ll see.
I just shot a commercial, and we have some promotional and media stuff
we’re working on, leading up to 2006 and hopefully beyond. Hopefully we can
get a good plan together and bring short track to the world again. We kind
of lost it for a little bit, and it’s hard for just one skater to push,
push, push to bring the sport up. Hopefully it will start getting to the
place where I think it should be
again.
| 