Saturday was not really Apolo’s day. Apolo led during most of his 500 preliminary, and was passed late by Nishitani – no problem there, except that with about 30 meters to go, Apolo slipped and could have fallen but recovered and finished without incident. In the quarterfinal Apolo was impeded at the start, had a bumpy ride, finished last and did not advance. His dad later explained that the refs tolerate a certain amount of jostling at the start of the 500 because the race is an all-out sprint and some contact is unavoidable. I guess it's pretty subjective, whether to call impeding or not.
It was great to see Rusty make it to the 500 finals. Unfortunately, Rusty finished just out of the hunt in 4th place, with the Italians sweeping the medals. It was impossible not to be happy about our hosts’ success, and especially Fabio’s win. The crowd was awesome and they were really excited and boisterous, especially all the young kids. I can’t wait for fans – for all of US – to rock the house in Salt Lake City!
Fabio steps off the ice after his 500 medal ceremony
Unfortunately too, neither the U.S. men nor women advanced to the relay finals. Derek Gray had a pretty impressive recovery from a near-fall in the early laps of the relay. Not long after an exchange, Derek slipped badly – there may have been contact, I don’t remember exactly – and I thought he was going down for sure. He was falling, but somehow managed to reverse it and get his skates back under him. I’ll never know how he pulled that off. They should award extra points for these things! Another perfect score for technical merit.
This is a good time to share my mini (and I do mean mini) movie of the start. Actually, it looks better when I watch it on my camera, it’s a little dark on the computer, but I LOVE this sequence… I love the starts, period. It was really fun to watch, to see the interaction between the starter and the skaters and wait for the starter’s pistol to go off. This was taken at the start for Apolo’s 500 heat. (Note: These are zip files; you'll have to download them to your local drive to view.)
Download Mini-movie 2, ‘Ready’: Looking over the starter’s shoulder, the skaters line up… adjust their starting positions according to starter’s instructions... Apolo and Nachbar of Germany rock up and down on their skates… (The race begins. Unfortunately, the camera didn't pick up the starter's commands, 'go to the start' and 'ready', but you coud hear them in the stands.)
An awesome day – but weren’t they all? Friday was thinly attended compared to the weekend. As it will be in SLC, seating in Bormio was general admission, and we moved around quite a bit from day to day and even during the day. I applied for a media credential, so armed with press passes, Corin, Torrie and I were able to see the action up close and from a variety of spots, great for taking pictures, especially of the medal ceremonies. Perhaps the best thing about the press pass: we got to take our breaks in the area for skaters, officials and media, where snacks and drinks were provided all day long, free of charge. Any time I needed to nibble on something, I just headed to the press center. It was there that a small-world encounter took place: do you all remember Makiko and Takako from the Farm Fresh appearance? I literally bumped into Takako as I was checking the press room for start lists. Takako had made the trip to Bormio from NYC, so we added a sixth to our group.
The opening ceremonies featured skaters from the Bormio club parading the flags of the nations participating in the World Cup that weekend. The main event of the day was the 1500, which was brilliant. As you know, Apolo’s 1500 victory set the stage for the weekend. I remember high-fiving Takako afterwards in the stands. I don’t think I could have been any happier if I had won the race myself! The medal ceremony was minimalist, and for some odd reason they had the medalists face away from the spectators. Moments later I had a brief opportunity to congratulate Apolo, and then it was time for the relay heats. The relay is the most fun to watch and a bit wild; it was great to see both the U.S. men and women advance to the semis.
The famous pre-race yawn
Here is something I wrote just after the day’s races:
Apolo proved himself yet again in the eyes of the world… He won gold today in the 1500 in fabulous fashion. Heat, quarterfinal, semi-final, final – all spectacular, esp. the last two. The semi was won by Fabio, who came on the outside from the back of the pack to win, with Apolo in second. The semis were wild, with 7 skaters in each race. Apolo was completely brilliant in the final, coming from way back with amazing passes, as both Koreans led with Fabio in third. Apolo easily passed into second and then into the lead with a half lap to go. Pure brilliance. The medal ceremony was bare-bones, with no national anthems played, but he received his medal and bouquet as did the silver and bronze medalists, Monette and Guilmette. I was so thrilled, proud and happy… I feel we're witnessing Apolo write history on ice.
Susan (aka Italian), Liz, Corin, Torrie and I arrived in Bormio the afternoon of Thursday, Dec. 5. Susan arranged with Bormio Ghiaccio to have their minibus service pick us up at Milan’s Malpensa airport to take us to Bormio. The drive was about 3 hours, and half of that was through tunnels cut into the mountains. Bormio was everything I had imagined and more – a perfect, quaint little Alpine town nestled in a valley surrounded on all sides by jagged, snow-capped peaks. Just beautiful, and blessedly free of McDonalds, chain stores and tacky souvenir shops. After checking into our hotel, we made our way on foot to Bormio Ghiaccio (the ice rink), to observe practice. Timing is everything, and we got there as the Italian team was on the ice for its final practice session. It was so fun to stand rinkside watching all the activity. After it ended, Fabio Carta came to introduce himself to Susan, and moments later I spotted Yuki Ohno and approached to introduce myself. Yuki warmly welcomed me, and after chatting a few moments, he invited me to join him to observe the team practices. We spent the rest of the day at the rink and watched the Italians, Canadians, Germans, Americans and Koreans practice. It was interesting to see the varying approaches to practice by the teams. The Americans seemed to do more chatting and standing around than actual skating, whereas the Koreans did elaborate drills. Yuki was very generous with his time and pointed out all the teams’ skaters by name, discussing their accomplishments, as well as how to spot which skaters might by having trouble. Yuki is a walking short track encyclopedia!
In the meantime, Fabio invited us all to go to dinner with him that evening. We returned to meet him at our hotel, where he picked us up and drove us to his favorite restaurant in Bormio, where everyone knows his name. Everyone in Bormio knows and loves Fabio, and it’s easy to see why. Fabio is very nice, outgoing, fun-loving and has a gentle spirit. He ordered us a selection of foods typical of the Bormio region and after dinner brought over the grappa bottle for us to taste an Italian specialty, and not content with that, he made sure we next had a chance to sample lemon grappa. Fabio takes a low-key approach to preparing for competition, but he did tell us that his first heat the next day in the 1500 would be against Apolo. This is also when we learned that Italy is not planning to attend World Cups #5 and 6 in Feb (we later learned that Korea, China and Japan will also miss the last two WCs.) We had a lot of fun, and Fabio was extremely generous to spend his evening with us before the competition started.
We're about to begin the group ordering process for the TEAM GIFT. We're designing World Cup memento shirts to be given to the Short Track athletes (men & women) that will have our names written on the back of the shirts. You'll be able to order matching shirts for yourselves to wear at the SLC World Cup games!
Here's a link from the Australian press: ...a new idea had entered the sporting universe. From that day for ever more, an Australian who has improbable victory fall into his or her hands will always be said to have "done a Bradbury".
posted by noelle . |
10:55 AM
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
Hi everyone, I'm BA-ack! FYI, our own 'Italian' can be seen in the photo posted on Dec. 9 from the 1000m medal ceremony. That's her in the white jacket, right above the sign on the far left that says "coaches' area" (she's sitting with our buddy Andrea, the bartender!).
I missed you guys! Mucho thanks to Todd for stepping in and posting all the news and links from Bormio while I was gone!
BORMIO, Italy -- Apolo Anton Ohno (Seattle) claimed his second consecutive short track World Cup overall title on Sunday, winning a gold in the 1,000 and a silver in the 3,000.
Ohno's performances earned him 89 points. Korea's Hyun-Soo Ahn placed second overall with 55 points this weekend.
Last weekend, Ohno won the men's overall title at the World Cup competition in St. Petersburg, Russia. Despite missing the first two events on the circuit, Ohno remains in contention for the season-ending World Cup overall title.
Ohno began Sunday with a win in the 1000-meters. Ohno (1 minute 28.150 seconds) edged out Ahn (1:28.408). Then in the men's 3000-meters, Ahn won the race with a time of 5 minutes 3.094 seconds to narrowly defeat Ohno, who placed second with a time of 5:03.666.
Sunday's finishes, combined with Ohno's gold medal in the 1500-meters on Friday, helped propel Ohno to victory. Yesterday, Ohno placed ninth in the 500-meters.
Rusty Smith (Sunset Beach, Calif.) finished seventh in the men's final overall standings with 13 points.
In today's competition, Smith placed 16th in the 1000-meters and was seventh in the 3000-meters.
Shani Davis (Chicago) placed 12th in the men's 1000-meters after reaching the quarterfinals. He finished 14th overall in the final standings.
The American ladies' team was led by Caroline Hallisey (Natick, Mass.), who finished the weekend ranked 11th overall in the final standings. Allison Baver (Sinking Spring, Penn.) placed 13th while Brigid Farrell (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) was 23rd.
Korea's Eun-Kyung Choi claimed the ladies' overall title this weekend with 89 points.
Choi also claimed the ladies' 1000-meters race today with a time of 1:31.469. Hallisey and Baver were knocked out in quarterfinal action. Hallisey placed 12th overall in the event while Baver finished 17th. Farrell was disqualified in her opening heat. She finished tied for 35th.
The short track World Cup circuit resumes action February 7-9 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Just FYI if you would like to let the Apolo fans know: We have a local race 12/22/02 starting around 9:30 a.m. - to 1:00 p.m. at the San Jose Ice Centre, corner of 10th and Alma. This race draws skaters from the Bay Area and Sacramento. Admission is free. There is a very competitive group of boys ages about 12-15 on the ice. (Well, everyone is competitive, but these kids are getting pretty fast. Any olympians-to-be? Maybe.)
posted by todd stuart |
2:59 PM
Sunday, December 08, 2002
Help In Apolo's Name reach their goal! Click on the link to buy cool t-shirts to support this worth cause! Check it out HERE! Thanks to Lucinda for coordinating!! Big kiss out to ya!
Thanks for visiting OHNO ZONE: Web resources for fans of Apolo Anton Ohno with the latest Ohno news, competition info, photos, appearances and more. Most of our photos,
fan encounters and comments are contributed by visitors. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed so far!
- Todd & Noelle
Comments by: YACCS
