Apolo Ohno vs. South Korea

By Jee | Monday, March 8, 2010 | 5 Comments

Thanks for visiting 8Asians, a blog about Asian American issues. If you find this interesting, subscribe to the RSS feed, visit our Facebook Page or add us on Twitter!

ohno Apolo Ohno vs. South Korea I realize that the 2010 Winter Olympics ended last week, and you might not care, but I do, so I’m going to keep on writing about it until the cows come home. Whatever that means.

I love the Olympics. We already covered that. My second favorite Winter Olympic sport is Short Track Speed Skating. My fandom of this sport is in large part to a certain cutie named Apolo Ohno who makes speed skating look like the hottest sport ever invented. I’ll admit that I’m pretty biased when it comes to Ohno, because even if he makes ungracious comments, I’ll overlook it, chalking it up to his good looks impairing his social graces during interviews.

I’m sure you’ve been aware, but ever since the 2002 Winter Olympics, it seems that those living in South Korea have hated on Ohno over his controversial medal.

Ohno finished runner-up to Lee Jung-Su after two other leading Koreans, Sung Si-Bak and Lee Ho-Suk, collided and crashed into the boards around the final turn in the men’s 1500m final on Saturday at the Vancouver Olympics…[The] Korean media slammed Ohno’s post-race comments that Korean skaters deserved to be disqualified in a fresh flare-up of the antipathy which surrounded him after he won the same event at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

Anyone who has watched the sport understands that the races are intense, and that at any given second, things can take a turn for the worse or better for any or all of its competing athletes. The nature of the sport forces the contenders to skate in close quarters, where accidents are bound to happen.

So maybe you can understand my incredulousness at South Korea for singling out our Ohno as the sole contributor for things not working out well for their countrymen. Let’s just accept the fact that it is what it is in Short Track Speed Skating and let bygones be bygones. I mean, are we, America, going to hate on Canadian Short Track Speed Skaters because we had our own bit of tussle at this year’s games?

Categories:

(featured)Current EventsSports

NOTE: 8Asians.com is a community, and we thank you for being a part of it. While we welcome and appreciate differences in opinion, if you're rude or you're promoting spam, we have a right to edit or delete your comment. Read our comment policy for more information.

If you see a comment that violates the 8Asians.com comment policy, you may flag the comment by mousing over the comment and clicking "FLAG."