KMK: Olympic Speed Skating Debacle

It’s 2010 and that means one thing for the sports fans around the world: Olympics! This year the Canadian city of Vancouver acts as the host city. Sadly, with all this global warming they’ve had to cart in fake snow. Still, whether its manmade or delivered by God the snow is there and the sports must go on!

I’m sure you’ve heard about the controversy surrounding the short track 1,500 meter event. It was this event that made Lee Ho-Suk the most infamous man in Korean sports. Toward the end of the race with him bringing up third place and his teammates Sung Si-Baeck and Lee Jung-Su in second and first place he tried to make a move and ended up crashing with Sung. He destroyed any chance of Korea sweeping the medals.  Even worse for Korean sports fans, allowing the despised Apolo Ohno to zoom into second place and benefit once again from Korean misfortune.

Ohno is no stranger to the ire of Korean sports fans. Way back in 2002 at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. There Ohno won a gold medal in the same event, the 1500m, even though South Korean Kim Dong-Song was the first across the finish line. Kim was disqualified for “blocking” Ohno.  So when Ohno was quoted as saying he was hoping for another disqualification many South Koreans became irate. Some of that spilled over onto the internet message boards, but Ohno wasn’t the only target.

Ho-Suk Lee’s Naver page became inundated with hate messages forcing him to close it. I’m sure the collective scream of aggravation could be heard around the country as the hopes of bronze, silver, and gold disappeared. My friend Ian could speak of nothing else the entire day, the day after, and the day after that. I felt bad for Lee Ho-Suk whose name will probably now be synonymous with causing a disastrous move in the face of shining glory now known as pulling a Ho-Suk. Coined by me!

Thankfully, another story has emerged to eclipse the Ohno Lee mess. Korea has earned first time gold medals in events the country has never won before. The Korean Olympian team of Wie and Mo has outdone itself. Well, they’re not really a team, just teammates, but they do attend the Korean National Sports University as classmates. They’ve both won Gold in the long track speed skating event.  Their win has sparked pride around the country and, of course, calls for the two to couple up, marry, and start producing Olympic gold medal babies.

Mo had another chance to reach gold, but was bested by Shani Davis of the US in the 1,000m race. Still, it has been a glorious time for Korean speed skaters. It’s become one of my new favorite events, but that’s more to do with the skin tight outfits than the actual sport. Go Speed Skating!