South Koreans Hate on Apolo Ohno?
By moneymaker92
@moneymaker92 (394)
United States
February 21, 2010 12:30pm CST
During the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Apolo Ohno won his first medal in the 1500m after two Koreans ahead of him slipped. Afterwards, the Korean Gold Medal winner, told Korean newspapers that Ohno did not deserve to be on the same podium as him. I found this somewhat shocking and disturbing, especially after seeing the great sportsmanship displayed by Ohno during these games. Also, when you look at the replay of the race, a Korean racer bumped into Ohno first, slowing him down and allowing the two other Koreans to pass. The Koreans have displayed hate towards Apolo Ohno, not just at these Olympic games, but ever since his Olympic debut (with Ohno receiving death threats from Koreans in 2003). What do you guys think about this? Do you find this as unsportsmanlike as I do?
3 people like this
7 responses
@moneymaker92 (394)
• United States
21 Feb 10
I agree, it made me so mad when I read that, especially when on Ohno's twitter, he congratulated the South Koreans for being such great skaters. It's kinda ridiculous.
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (160949)
• United States
21 Feb 10
I was not aware of this, but I must say that it is certainly not displaying the spirit of the Olympics or a spirit of good sportsmanship.
1 person likes this
@Idlewild (6090)
• United States
22 Feb 10
Sounds like sour grapes to me. Contact is part of short-track skating, and the competitors know that. The Korean gold medal winner should be calling out his teammate who took out the other Korean instead of saying Ohno doesn't belong on the podium!
Also, the officials have video replay of the races, so they can disqualify anyone they think caused too much contact (in fact, the Korean skater who knocked out his teammate was disqualified from that race).
But, sometimes comments come out wrong in translation, so maybe what the gold medal winner actually said and meant wasn't as bad as had been reported. In any case, Ohno has skated great races and has deserved the medals he's won. Case closed!
@OrangJuice (687)
• China
22 Feb 10
Hey, moneymaker, how to say? Firstly, we have to confess that Korea Team is very stronge on short track speed skating. And they always win on all of events. That also gives them huge pressure, I think. In another word, they don't accept failure.
Your post remind me the game yesterday (Woman's 1500m semifinal). First three players bumped together and falled down. Our player WANG Meng (winner of woman's 500m) was also the one of them. And finally she was judged illegality. And we could also find the American player force-surpass firstly. So she couldn't understand completely. But our team accept the result. I can remember YANG Yang said, what the player can do is to do as well as they can, so that judge has no chances to give illegality judge. And in many situation, it can be different result as per different angles.
Anyway, once you attend the game, you should accept any result.
@blue65packer (11826)
• United States
21 Feb 10
The South Koreans are sour losers! The Koreans are pissed off because they didn't medal in the 1500m! The Koreans should be happy now! They won gold and silver,Ono bronze, in the 1000m last night! I think this is unsportsmanlike in some ways for the Koreans but at least we know that Apolo Ono is not that way!
1 person likes this
@ErrollLeVant (4353)
• United States
22 Feb 10
the koreans have shown not only poor sportsmanship toward Ohno, but have violated the rules against teaming up to insure their best possible finishes. The rules call for individual competition. Ohno has shown extreme class.