|
|
| Ohno Zone
|
|
|
APOLO ANTON OHNO Ohno Zone Interview, October 2005 OZ: Was returning to Korea your hardest mental challenge in your career so far? AAO: Yeah - it's up there. In the past I've competed sick but I've never really been able to push [myself] like this. I was really happy. I really surprised myself with how I performed. I was so weak. I had like no food in my body for four days straight. I don't know if you saw any pictures, but I looked really nasty. My face got really skinny. OZ: There were upwards of 30 DQ's all weekend. It seemed like a lot more than normal. What did the skaters make of that? AAO: It was really tight. [Some of the calls] were pretty warranted. The cross-track JP [Kepka] did on Jiajun [Li] was pretty funny. We all had a good laugh! It might have been in the 1000m... I'm not sure. Jiajun was skating well all weekend... and he was passing outside, inside, outside, inside. He was passing JP on the inside and it looked like JP did a pivot in the straightaway! [The refs] were calling it pretty tight, all competition. They didn't call it that tight for China, which is interesting. OZ: How do the Olympic qualifiers work next month and what are the U.S. team's goals? AAO: Basically, every country gets I think one skater [in each distance automatically]. You get two skaters if you place top 16 or something. Just like a regular World Cup, points are added up at the end. If you get all three guys in the top eight in a distance, overall that means that you can have three guys in that distance in the Games. Which means more team skating. Except in the 500. We want to get three guys - that's the goal. It's going to be really hard. A lot of us are skating better so we'll see. We have a pretty strong team. OZ: Apart from yourself, do you know who is going to be skating individual distances at the European World Cups? AAO: I don't know yet. JP and Rusty [Smith] will probably skate a 500, but I'm not sure. [With the relay team things are going] better and better. Our results in Korea (the U.S. men finished 4th) were just because everyone was so drained. That's the only reason why. Rusty fell on one exchange. But we're definitely not far off [the mark]. OZ: Leading up to Torino, what can we look forward to in terms of media and endorsements? AAO: Oh, there's so much media! New endorsements? Ok... well, we have McDonalds, we have Roots... there is some really cool gear [from Roots] for the Games, the ceremonies and just for the athletes in general [to wear] around the [Olympic] Village. [Other sponsors include] Hilton Hotels, who redid my room - they're sponsoring the USOC as well. I'm also being sponsored by GE and Coca-Cola. I can't really go into details about Coke, but they'll be using my name, my image. I did some appearances earlier this year with them. And I have Land Roller too. But I'm trying to keep everything pretty much to a minimum right now until the Games. I did a lot of stuff this past week [at the Media Summit]. Note from Apolo's agents: Apolo's Hilton Hotels sponsorship is part of their "Competitive Advantage Program" and he participated in a media tour for Hilton by satellite last Thursday in Colorado Springs. The GE Healthcare sponsorship involves their portable ultrasound diagnostic equipment which he helped demonstrate at an appearance during the recent media summit in Colorado Springs. OZ: You really had no time to rest, as soon as you got back from Asia you had to hit the ground running! AAO: Monday night, the night I got back, I had an appearance with GE, one of my sponsors, and then I was at Land Roller too. All day, Tuesday it was media, from 8 in the morning till 10 at night. And it was the same thing on Wednesday, with training. I'm still not even adjusted to the time change! Coming back [from Asia] is the worst [for jet lag]. OZ: Can we expect to see you in some new commercials too? AAO: SURE!! ...But I can't go into details on them yet. I did a lot of media [this past week] during the Media Summit. I have a photo shoot with Land Roller this Sunday. I'm pretty tired from it all! [At least] I don't have to go anywhere, they're all going to come here [to Colorado Springs]. OZ: Do you feel the upcoming Olympic experience will feel different to you from Salt Lake four years ago? AAO: Yeah. Everything is different, I think. The skating is going to be different, different dynamics, some different guys. Obviously the Games are going to be different because of where it's at, on foreign soil, so it's going to feel much different. I do have some things I have experience with so I'm happy to bring those to the table when I compete. OZ: Thanks for your time Apolo. Please rest up and we hope you recover your full health quickly! AAO: Thank you very much! [Ohno Zone Home] AAO Oct. '05 page 1 | 2 |
|
|
|
|
||||
|
||||||||