Ohno Zone

July 01, 2005

Video clip: U.S. Short Track Championships Intro

Here's the first clip from the 2005 U.S. ST Championships in Milwaukee. This one sets the stage for the men's competition with commentary from Tim Vanvooren and Andy Gabel.

Many thanks for Moz for providing the tape and Sonia and Maggie as usual for their editing and hosting skills! There will be more to come soon. From what I'm hearing, the coverage was outstanding!

Download the clip here.

Posted by noelle at 08:19 AM Comments (12)

June 02, 2005

US National Short Track Championships on College Sports TV

For those of you lucky enough to get College Sports TV: Just a reminder that beginning Sunday, June 5, you can watch coverage of nationals, taped in Milwaukee in late February. CSTV will show men's and women's races on different days on their Olympic Pursuit program.

Here's the schedule (official schedule here) -- all times EDT:
Men
Sun, June 5 @10pm
Tues, June 7 @1:30pm
Wed, June 8 @1am
Fri, June 10 @5pm
Sat, June 11 @5am

Women
Sun, June 12 @9pm
Mon, June 13 @1am
Mon, June 13 @6:30am
Tues, June 14 @12pm
Wed, June 15 @12am

Posted by noelle at 06:53 PM Comments (7)

March 06, 2005

Jerry Search photo galleries

Here's another awesome shot from the 1000m A final in Milwaukee, courtesy of Jerry Search.

Jerry's extensive photo galleries from last weekend are nearly complete. You can check them out here: 2005 National Short Track Championships Lots of great stuff!

Posted by noelle at 05:43 PM Comments (6)

March 02, 2005

New photo gallery: Faces in Milwaukee

The first gallery from Milwaukee is finished. I decided to devote this one entirely to candids since I had so many of them.

Here's a sample:

Apolo stares in wonderment and awe at a new skate

More of Apolo than anybody else, but lots of other skaters are there too. Hope you enjoy!

Faces at the 2005 U.S. Short Track Championships

Posted by noelle at 10:51 PM Comments (23)

February 28, 2005

Final results from Milwaukee

For a synopsis of the weekend's results as well as an explanation of the rule that disqualified Rusty from the World Team, see the US Speedskating recap:
Spills, Thrills, Tension and of course... World Class Skating!

Top 5 Men
Apolo Anton Ohno
J.P. Kepka
Rusty Smith
Alex Izykowski
Shani Davis

Top 5 Ladies
Hyo-jung Kim
Allison Baver
Brigid Farrell
Carly Wilson
Kristen Biondo

Complete results from the U.S. Championships are now available from US Speedskating:
- Senior (Elite) Overall Standings
- Age class overall standings

Senior and age class results are also available in time and classifications formats from US Speedskating.

Age class results of particular interest to OZers:

Juvenile ladies' champion: Morgan Izykowski, 14 year old sister of Alex - this earns her her category 1 status! Morgan's cousin and friend Meagan Chartier was 4th in this group.
Junior men: Barry Winslow, coming back from the terrible injury he suffered at this event last year in Cleveland, finished 8th overall.
Intermediate men's champion: Derek Gray won his age group.

COngratulations to all the skaters!

Posted by noelle at 11:14 PM Comments (15)

February 27, 2005

Top 3 men and women for 2005 World Team

[correction to this item] - Rusty Smith is still 3rd overall, despite not skating in the 3000m in Milwaukee. These awards were evidently for the top 3 men and women on the World Team.

click to enlarge

Men: J.P. Kepka (2nd), Apolo Ohno (1st), Jordan Malone (3rd)
Women: Allison Baver (2nd), Hyo-jung Kim (1st), Brigid Farrell (3rd)

Posted by noelle at 03:30 PM Comments (3)

1000m finals & 3000m in Milwaukee

3000m - Halie and Allison went out early and lapped the pack. The other skaters, with no interest in chasing, had no reaction at all to the leaders' move, so they were successful and finished yet again 1 and 2.

In the men's 3000, Jordan made an early move out front to lap the pack. The rest of the skaters picked up their pace and stayed in a bunch, while there was a small gap back to Apolo was alone at the very back. Eventually the pack caught Jordan but the race got intense and we wondered for a while if J.R. Celski would ultimately win the race. In the last lap Apolo got around the skaters ahead of him and won the race in impressive fashion. It's like Apolo could give up a one lap handicap and still win the race. Just awesome!

Photo on left shows men's 3000m medalists: Apolo Ohno (gold), Alex Izy (silver) and Shani Davis (bronze) - click to enlarge

1000m - Evidently J.P. Kepka was supposed to skate in the 1000m B final but after being disqualified in the semi he didn't know this, so only 2 skaters were on the line for the B final: Jeff Simon and Alex Izykowski. Alex took command of the race and seemed poised for victory when heartbreak struck -- Alex hit a block and fell. Although he's ok, he finished 2nd, costing him some important points and possibly a spot on the world team (not sure of the exact points involved). Another one of those 'that's short track' moments, but it has to be pretty disappointing.

Halie Kim won the women's A final, with Allison Baver 2nd, Bridie Farrell third and Kristen Biondo 4th. The race saw little passing and nothing unusual happened... which is a relief after the craziness taking place among the men.

As could be expected, the men's 1000m A final saw more craziness! I hope someone else can tell you what happened because I'm still not sure... lots of passing as usual, and Rusty Smith appeared to make a strong bid to make good on his vow to win today... however, a lot of movement took place at the end and Apolo once again seized the lead in decisive fashion. When they came to the line, it was obvious that Apolo won, and that DQs were yet to come. The order of finish was Jordan Malone, Shani Davis, and then Rusty and Travis Jayner (not sure what order).

Subsequently Travis was disqualified for impeding and Rusty for cross-tracking but this didn't affect the medals.

Posted by noelle at 03:25 PM Comments (6)

February 26, 2005

500m medalists in Milwaukee

The women's 500m medalists, looking lovely in red, white and blue!
Allison Baver (silver), Halie Kim (gold), Carly Wilson (bronze)

The men's 500m medalists are awfully serious...
J.P. Kepka (silver), Apolo Ohno (gold), Shani Davis (bronze)

... but it doesn't last!

The shock of the day is that Rusty Smith isn't on the medal stand. Because he finished 3rd in his semifinal, Rusty skated in the B final, which he won handily. Afterwards, Andy Gabel interviewed Rusty for College Sports Network, which will air the U.S. Championships at a future date.

Although clearly not happy with his performance today, Rusty sounded philosophical about what happened today and noted that his semi included 4 strong skaters (Shani, Travis Jayner and J.P.) and I believe Rusty also started from lane 4. He also said his goal is to come back tomorrow and win the 1000m.

Young autograph seekers besiege Apolo right after he winns the 500m

Apolo seemed to just breeze through all his races today! In his semifinal, Jordan Malone had a wild-looking slip on the ice in the last lap or so, which took him out of contention. In the final, nobody was getting around Apolo in the lead and J.P. in 2nd, so the fight was between Shani and Alex Izykowski for bronze. Shani got around Alex for bronze and a strong performance he really needed after his semifinal DQ yesterday.

After his 500m victory, Apolo was also interviewed. Andy asked Apolo if he found it more fun or relaxing to skate in domestic competitions since he has no real rival. Apolo said 'a little bit' but that he can't relax too much because it's the World Team trials and his goal here is to finish every race 1st or 2nd. I can't remember the exact word he used, but Apolo also mentioned something to the effect that he doesn't feel as 'on' when he isn't skating internationally.

[updated] Here are the official overall standings after today:

Men's overall (tentative): 1. Apolo Ohno, 2. J.P. Kepka, 3. Rusty Smith, 4. Alex Izykowski, 5. Shani Davis, 6. Jordan Malone, 7. Travis Jayner

I'm not sure I get how Malone is ahead of Jayner at this point.

Women's overall: 1. Hyo-jung Kim, 2. Allison Baver, 3. Brigid Farrell, 4. Carly Wilson, 5. Kristen Biondo, 6. Lezleigh Jaworski, 7. Tina Koenig

Full result available at USSpeedskating.org

Photos from the men's and women's 500m A finals - click to enlarge

A nice AP article on today's events:Ohno, Kim win again at the U.S. short track championships

Posted by noelle at 11:49 PM Comments (13)

Milwaukee Day 2 (1500m)

[updated Sat. afternoon] - results from Friday are now online at US Speedskating's web site

Greetings from Milwaukee (where I've only just arrived after a 3.5 hour delay for the flight crew to arrive at Dulles...!) At this point I can only pass on the unofficial results already posted by ADumas (thanks again!). I think the word for today is predictable, overall.

Congratulations to Apolo for extending his winning streak, as well as to all the other top finishers -- and way to go, J.R. Celski, skating in the A final! J.R. is the young guy from Apolo's hometown of Federal Way who came 2nd at U.S. Juniors but wasn't able to go to Jr. Worlds because of his tender age (13 as of December 2004).

Unofficial results from today:

mens 1500m
1. Ohno
2. Smith
3. Kepka
4. Izykowski
5. Celski
DQ Kooreman
DQ Malone

overall
1. Ohno
2. Smith
3. Kepka
4. Izykowski
5. Malone
6. Celski
7. Jayner
8. Davis
9. Yun
9. Cox
9. Lobello

Womens' 1500m
1. Kim
2. Baver
3. Farrell
4. Biondo
5. Wilson
6. Koenig

Overall
1. Kim
2. Baver
3. Farrell
4. Wilson
5. Biondo
6. Koenig
7. Jaworski
8. Derrick
9/10. Wheeler/Fling

The only additional tidbits I can offer right now are that besides Jordan Malone and Mike Kooreman, I heard that Shani Davis was disqualified in the earlier rounds today. Also that Derek Gray won the men's B final.

Posted by noelle at 12:12 AM Comments (2)

February 24, 2005

Milwaukee Day 1 (Time Trials)

[updated Friday morning]

Yesterday the U.S. Short Track Championships got underway in Milwaukee with 9-lap/1000m and 4-lap/444m time trials, paring the group of 72 elite skaters down to 16 men and 16 women vying for the national title, and more importantly, spots on the U.S. team for next month's World Championships in China as well as on the World Cup team for the Asian World Cups in fall 2005.

Apolo Ohno is of course the overwhelming favorite to take his 7th national title. The women's race is between 2004 runner-up Hyo-jung Kim and Allison Baver.

The Associated Press reports that Rusty Smith -- who has suffered a spate of bad luck the past 2 seasons -- fell in the 444m TT today but is uninjured: "Smith re-skated and finished second to Ohno among the 16 skaters who qualified to compete in the elite men's division. His fall came in a 4-lap time trial which followed an earlier 9-lap event." read full article

Don't ask me how scoring works, with all those ties! I thought it was all points based, but point opportunities being scarce, they must use times as a ranking factor for those without points.

See also: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | State skaters make cut

Also, thanks to ADumas we have some unofficial results from today's time trials:

Women's 1000m time trial
1. Hyo-Jung Kim
2. Allison Baver
3. Brigid Farrell
4. Carly Wilson

Men's 1000m tt
1. Apolo Ohno
2. Rusty Smith
3. Jordan Malone

Men's 444m tt
1. Ohno
2. JP Kepka
3. Smith
4. Travis Jayner

Men's overall
1. Ohno
2. Smith
3. Kepka
4. Malone
5. Izykowski
6. Jayner
7. Shani Davis

Complete results via US Speedskating: Points and Time (PDF format)

Posted by noelle at 10:38 PM Comments (19)

February 23, 2005

Good luck, skaters!

The U.S. Short Track National Championships get underway tomorrow in Milwaukee. Just want to wish good luck to Apolo and to all the skaters taking part, whether they're vying for spots on the U.S. team or skating in the age group divisions.

To all the fans that are going, have a great time and cheer everybody on! Be sure to lend some support to resident OZers Cassie, Nick and Chris in their races - I'm sure they will appreciate it!

Articles have been appearing from hometown papers covering local skaters. Hope Cassie doesn't mind me posting it; there's a great article about her among them!

Sheboygan (WI) Press | North frosh on fast track to short track success

When Cassie Dins discovered short track speed skating during the 2002 Winter Olympics, she became enraptured with the hip, new sport. There was just one problem — Dins had never skated before.

Long Beach (CA) Press-Telegram | From blacktop to ice
(about Joey Lindsey, who represented the USA at Junior Worlds in January)

Baltimore Sun | Cho, 13, on fast track to short-track success
(about up-and-comer Simon Cho, with comparisons to Apolo)

Posted by noelle at 09:46 AM Comments (12)