Short-track speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno didn't add another medal to his collection Friday night, when he was disqualified for pushing in the final of the men's 500 meters at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.My understanding is that the judges took quite a few minutes trying to decide whether to disqualify Ohno, or to strip the Team Korea of every medal ROK athletes have ever won at the winter Olympics. It was a close call, but Jim Hewish had gone out for a nosh, so they went with the former.
Ohno appeared to push Francois-Louis Tremblay of Canada on the final turn, causing Tremblay and South Korean skater Sung Si-Bak to fall.
In the end, Canada's Charles Hamelin won the gold, Sung won the silver, and Tremblay the bronze.
Ohno has one more chance to win a medal later tonight, in the men's 5,000-meter relay, during which he will employ a three-pronged strategy of throwing up his hands in horror whenever someone passes him, using a crowbar on the knees of his worst skating threat right before the race, and dongchim.
At the end of the race, they interviewed Ohno and he said that he feels he was on the wrong end of that call because the judge was Canadian...so, it was a bad call in his mind.
ReplyDeleteJust a note, the olympic committee decided to keep Hewish out of this race for security reasons, but he was still sitting in the stands. When the NBC commentator asked the co-commentator (the expert skate guy) if he felt the decision Hewish made to DQ the Korean women was the right call, he said "I don't agree with that call but I DO agree with the decision to sit him out..for security reasons"...that quote is not verbatim...but it's close.