Vancouver Winter Games and the Speed-Skating Asians
By wchung | 22 Feb, 2025

I was actually watching when two Asian-Americans won short track medals.

Apolo Anton Ohno cut to the inside the final lap of the short-track 1500m speed skating final, trying to force the hand of the three South Korean skaters ahead of him. He only had so much room to fluidly cut in, adjusting his hips, length and frequency of his stride to become the most decorated American male winter olympian by winning 6 medals.

The timing on his move looked perfect and he looked ready to burst to the front and finish with the gold medal but his play was read, the frisky South Koreans physically preventing him from taking away their coveted 1-2-3 finish. It became a foot race at the end, an expanse of ice rounding about to a photo finish, but Lee Ho-Suk decided to make a move, a dangerous pass that caused him to lose balance and knock into country-mate Sung Si-Bak. In the span of a couple tenths of a second, Korea went from sweeping the medals of that one event to giving way to two Americans – Apolo Anton Ohno and his protege, J.R. Celski.

The Winter Olympics is when a world of athleticism little known to Americans is spotlighted for a few weeks. Sure, we’re okay at snowboarding, hockey, figure skating and skiing but what about these foreign sports like short track speed skating, curling and that thing where you ski and shoot rifles? The athletes are amazing and are putting their lives on the line, as witnessed by the tragic accident of the Georgian luger a couple days ago. So if they are to have their moment to shine every four years or so, let them have it.

It’s amazing that the speed-skaters that placed are all of an Asian heritage – Korean, Japanese and Filipino in that order. Apolo has attained unprecedented fame for a man who wears tights and skates around in circles at impossible speeds and angles for a living. He’s been on the TV show Dancing With The Stars and has probably become more recognized for his part in the dancing celebrity show than his long Olympian career. And it’s exciting to see J.R. Celski as the next great American speed skating star.

I never thought I would ever remotely care about speed skating. It’s good to be an Asian American right about now.