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STEPHEN GOUGH, former U.S. National Short Track Coach Ohno Zone Interview, April 2003 | PART 2: 2003 COMPETITIONS 
coaching the U.S. ladies in Salt Lake City OZ: The World Championships in Poland were perhaps both frustrating and disappointing for Apolo and the team. Did you expect better results overall? Was it a surprise that Apolo did not finish on the podium? SG: The way I would put it is everyone was below where they could have been and below where they should have been in the rankings. Of the five skaters that skated, Rusty was 17th, J.P. 19th, Maria 38th, Caroline was 17th, Apolo was 4th. Ideally Apolo would have been 1st, Rusty would have been top 8, J.P. would have been top 12-15, Caroline would have been top 14-15, Maria would have been top 30 or so. But it didn't work out that way. Maria's one strong race at that level would have been the 500 and she was in second, miles ahead of everyone else in her heat, and fell in the second-to-last corner by herself. If she doesn't fall there and goes 1 or 2 more rounds, maybe more, she's top 25 instead of 38th, just from the seeding points she would have gotten. Rusty as well. He skated great in the 1500, he was third in the semi. Then in the 500, a guy fell right in front of him in the second corner. [Rusty] was way behind Li Jiajun and Alex McEwan and on the last lap he caught up and tried to pass the Australian guy and [he] just fell again. That was in his second round. J.P was in second place in his [500m] heat, for 499.8 meters. He got beat by 2 or 3 one-thousandths of a second, at the line. He's someone I would have given an equal chance in the corner to get into the semis. He's a very good 500 skater. So right away, of the five skaters in the 500, three of them had little things that happened. Caroline as well, she drew a hard heat in the 1500, which was picking [the top two finishers] plus the four fastest thirds [to advance to the next round]. Not only was she in a hard heat, she was in the first heat, so you have no way to gauge how fast you need to go. The people in the fourth and fifth heats know what time they have to beat and how fast they have to go out. It was just unfortunate that it worked out that way. Here she was in that race, with the second-highest World Cup ranking, and a Korean gets randomly drawn into her race. Same thing with J.P.'s 1500. He had no World Cup ranking points, so we knew he could get screwed, he could just get randomly drawn in. Of the 15-20 skaters at the Worlds who didn't have any world ranking points, there was [J.P.] and Song, the Korean, who were probably the top two guys of those people who had no seeding going in. Both of them got drawn into the same heat. So J.P. had [Fabio] Carta and [Jeffrey] Scholten and the Korean and him, picking three [to advance]. That's luck of the draw. Those things happened to us over and over again. Rusty getting DQ'ed in his 1000 heat was very unfortunate. He's capable of skating better than he did in that race. Apolo made mistakes in his 1000. I mean, you can't skate from the back like that. So it was a combination in my mind of some little circumstances that occurred, plus just some skating that wasn't quite up to the level of execution that it needed to be at. [Bad luck and mistakes] sort of go hand in hand. I'm whining about J.P. being beat by a couple thousandths, but at the same time, if you're in second going into the last turn and you're not dead tired, you gotta get the job done, too. OZ: Comment please about team skating, especially on the part of Koreans where in some cases there were three skaters from Korea in a single race? SG: I don't know. If there are three [Koreans] in a race, and they all want to go to the front and lead, and whether they share leads or not I don't know, but I don't really accuse them of doing anything wrong. If they want to go to the front and make the race fast, that's their choice. If I'm in second place behind somebody, whether they are from my country or not, I'm going to be skating on the inside shoulder or outside shoulder to block the passing lanes. I'm not going to follow right behind the person [in front] so that it's easier for people to go by. It shouldn't matter what country you're from. These top skaters know enough to do that. Just because there's two skaters from the same country in a race, crying team skating is just sour grapes. We could expect other tactics. Like with the other Korean coaches -- for example, they [used to] send their weakest skater out in the 1500 to try to lap the pack. That would force a non-Korean skater to chase, to pull the pack, and tire themself out eventually. Meanwhile, the stronger Korean skater is sitting in the back, resting. And then what happens if somebody doesn't give chase, the Korean guy that took off, he's going to get points and win a race. If they do chase, the other Korean or two that are sitting in the pack will just sit in and be fresh at the end because they're not pulling the pack at a harder pace. This year [at the Worlds] -- yes, there were three skaters from one country in a race, but were they team skating in an unfair, unjust way? I would say no. If you know your three guys are strong and you know the ice isn't super-fast -- it's worker ice, that's what we had in Warsaw, there wasn't a lot of glide to it, so you had to be fit -- yeah, tell your people to go to the front and pull hard. Especially if you've got two or three [skaters in the same race]. Someone passing from 1st into 2nd, you can't accuse them of team skating. Apolo and Stephen do ice maintenance in Salt Lake 
image courtesy Liz OZ: The commentators on ABC referred to their technique as 'team skating.' What is the definition of team skating as an illegal practice? SG: Well, I'll pull out my ISU rule book right here. "Team skating: During a race, any action that is in any way beneficial to the result of another skater is considered team skating, and all involved shall be disqualified. Does not apply to relay races." Let's just put it this way: I've seen worse team skating this year at other events than what happened at the Worlds. Far worse. OZ: Do referees ever call team skating? It seems to be extremely rare that this rule is enforced. SG: The first year they brought that rule in was spring of 2000. In the first World Cup of October of 2000, they disqualified two Korean women in the 3000. They went on their little 'lap the pack' kick that they go on. So actually the world record in the 3000, the first girl crossed the line in the 3000 in something like 4:51, but they disqualified one or two of the Korean women in that race for team skating. The only [other] time I would say it's happened is at Quebec competitions where the meet's not that serious and you're in the 3000 and guys are clowning around and a guy gives someone a relay push, thinking that the referees aren't watching. OZ: Is it fair to say that the rule as it's written is too vague to be effective anyway? SG: Like I said, when you start getting into why someone races the way they do, it's pretty hard to start [interpreting] what they're thinking or why they're doing what they're doing. As a coach, I've asked referees, 'Do you think there was team skating in that race? Because all the skaters and all the coaches know there was team skating in that race, so how come you guys can't figure it out?' They just say no. A lot of the skaters out there know when it's going on. >> Continue to page 3 >> Ohno Zone Home // Interview: page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4 | page 5 |
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