What’s he going to say now? In the Men’s Short Track 500m final, where he has won Gold before, Apolo Anton Ohno was disqualified for taking out Canadian skater Francois Louis-Tremblay. As NBC commentator Andy Gabel kept saying, it looked like Ohno barely touched Francois, but that same less than minimal touch is what Ohno said brought him from Gold to Bronze in the 1000m final. So I want to know what he’s going to say now because he’s definitely going to say something.
I don’t want to look like I’m on a quest to discredit Apolo or that I don’t support him because I was pulling for him again in the 500m, but as they came around the last lap and he was still out of medal position I just knew he was going to force something to get himself in the race. I respect that. That’s why he has seven medals, that will to win. But I was apprehensive, too, because when you force something in Short Track most of the time you bring someone down in the process.
Well, it didn’t take long for Cris Collinsworth to catch up with Ohno after his disqualification, and everything went just as expected. So, Ohno started talking and I was ready to write a glowing report about America’s Silver and Bronzen boy (with a little Gold thrown in) because he sounded good. Of course he said Louis-Tremblay slipped and that he didn’t push him, but that wasn’t unexpected. And then. Well, let me just say, if you give Ohno enough rope he really knows what to do with it and ex-wide receiver or not, Collinsworth is a good enough reporter to play hangman if he wants to. Here’s the last part of the interview:
Ohno: I’m leaving with no regrets, but we still have the relay and uh, I really want to go out there and make sure our guys get a medal.
Collinsworth: You had your hand on him, but it didn’t look like much of a push. Do you disagree with the call.
Ohno: I do. Um, you know my hand is up to basically just protect myself from basically running into the back of him. So, it’s more, it’s like a cushion, you know, there’s no…I’m not trying to push anybody down or anything like that. But uh, you know, that’s the, that’s the head Canadian ref out there and we’re on Canadian soil. But you know, the boys skated very, very well and it’s was a good race.
Collinsworth: Do you feel like that’s a factor, the Canadian ref.
Ohno: I think so, absolutely. But, you know, in Short Track it’s, everything’s so subjective, so I just have to be faster.
Honestly, if you took a black marker to all the points where he’s making excuses and accusations and only left the words where he congratulates his other racers and blames himself for not being faster, there’d be nothing to write about. You’d say, wow, that guy is charismatic, or man, that Ohno has really white teeth, but he can’t help himself. He just needs us to believe he’s the best so much that he sticks his foot in his mouth every time. And I can’t just sit here while nobody else calls him out and let him get away with it. Here’s a little secret coming too late to Ohno: You don’t actually need to win Gold Medals to be our Golden boy, you just have to have a little class.
Bomb threats, death threats, just another day in Short Track? Well, after the South Korean Relay team was unjustly disqualified and robbed of their Gold Medal in the Women’s 3000m event, the Australian judge who made the terrible call received both.