Short-track speed skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics – Men's 1500 metres

Men's 1500 metres at the XIX Olympic Winter Games
Pictogram for short track
Venue	Salt Lake Ice Center
Dates	20 February 2002
Competitors	31 from 19 nations
Winning time	2:18.541
Medalists
Apolo Anton Ohno   United States Li Jiajun   China Marc Gagnon   Canada
2006  →

The men's 1500 metres in short track speed skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics took place on 20 February at the Salt Lake Ice Center. ^[1]

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows: ^[2]

World record	Apolo Anton Ohno  (USA)	2:13.728	Kearns, United States	15 December 2001
Olympic record	None	None	None	None

The following new Olympic records were set during this competition.

Date	Round	Team	Time	OR	WR
13 February	Heat 5	Guo Wei  (CHN)	2:18.846	OR
16 February	Semifinal 1	Mathieu Turcotte  (CAN)	2:15.942	OR

Results

Heats

The first round was held on 20 February. There were six heats of five skaters each, with the top three finishers moving on to the semifinals. ^[2]

Heat 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Ahn Hyun-soo	South Korea	2:23.287	Q
2	Bruno Loscos	France	2:23.517	Q
3	Satoru Terao	Japan	2:23.680	Q
4	Pieter Gysel	Belgium	2:24.161
5	Volodymyr Hryhor'iev	Ukraine	2:25.316

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Fabio Carta	Italy	2:26.644	Q
2	Apolo Anton Ohno	United States	2:26.809	Q
3	Nicky Gooch	Great Britain	2:27.084	Q
4	Kornél Szántó	Hungary	2:27.467
5	Mark McNee	Australia	2:27.840

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Rusty Smith	United States	2:25.179	Q
2	Li Jiajun	China	2:25.347	Q
3	Martin Johansson	Sweden	2:25.824	Q
4	Leon Flack	Great Britain	2:25.832
5	Kiril Pandov	Bulgaria	2:27.730

Heat 4

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Kim Dong-sung	South Korea	2:22.133	Q
2	André Hartwig	Germany	2:22.541	Q
3	Steven Bradbury	Australia	2:22.632	Q
4	Mark Jackson	New Zealand	2:22.906
5	Krystian Zdrojkowski	Poland	2:23.015

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Guo Wei	China	2:18.846	Q
2	Nicola Rodigari	Italy	2:19.067	Q
3	Miroslav Boyadzhiev	Bulgaria	2:22.082	Q
4	Balázs Knoch	Hungary	2:40.617
5	Naoya Tamura	Japan	3:06.585

Heat 6

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Marc Gagnon	Canada	2:20.126	Q
2	Cees Juffermans	Netherlands	2:20.397	Q
3	Gregory Durand	France	2:20.496	Q
4	Matúš Užák	Slovakia	2:22.557
–	Simon Van Vossel	Belgium	DQ

Semifinals

The semifinals were held on 20 February. The top two finishers in each of the three semifinals qualified for the A final, while the third and fourth place skaters advanced to the B Final. ^[2]

Semifinal 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Kim Dong-sung	South Korea	2:15.942	QA
2	Bruno Loscos	France	2:15.981	QA
3	Rusty Smith	United States	2:16.906	QB
4	Miroslav Boyadzhiev	Bulgaria	2:23.468	QB
5	Nicola Rodigari	Italy	2:53.907
–	Satoru Terao	Japan	DQ

Semifinal 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Fabio Carta	Italy	2:25.072	QA
2	Apolo Anton Ohno	United States	2:25.152	QA
3	Guo Wei	China	2:25.321	QB
4	Steven Bradbury	Australia	2:25.457	QB
5	Nicky Gooch	Great Britain	2:25.903
6	André Hartwig	Germany	2:25.936

Semifinal 3

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1	Li Jiajun	China	2:19.877	QA
2	Marc Gagnon	Canada	2:20.050	QA
3	Cees Juffermans	Netherlands	2:21.726	QB
4	Martin Johansson	Sweden	2:24.032	QB
5	Gregory Durand	France	2:49.994
–	Ahn Hyun-soo	South Korea	DQ

Finals

The six qualifying skaters competed in Final A, while six others raced in Final B. ^[2]

Final A

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
	Apolo Anton Ohno	United States	2:18.541
	Li Jiajun	China	2:18.731
	Marc Gagnon	Canada	2:18.806
4	Fabio Carta	Italy	2:18.947
5	Bruno Loscos	France	2:19.587
–	Kim Dong-sung	South Korea	DQ

Final B

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
6	Rusty Smith	United States	2:27.155
7	Guo Wei	China	2:27.376
8	Cees Juffermans	Netherlands	2:27.611
9	Martin Johansson	Sweden	2:28.559
10	Steven Bradbury	Australia	2:28.604
11	Miroslav Boyadzhiev	Bulgaria	2:29.307

Controversy

In the final race A, with one lap remaining and currently in second place, Apolo Ohno of the United States attempted to make a pass on the leader Kim Dong-Sung of South Korea, who then drifted to the inside and as a result, Ohno raised his arms to imply he was blocked. Kim finished first ahead of Ohno, but the Australian referee James Hewish disqualified Kim for what appeared to be impeding, awarding the gold medal to Ohno. Fourth-place finisher of the race, Fabio Carta of Italy, showed his disagreement with the disqualification decision saying it was "absurd that the Korean was disqualified". ^[3] China's Li Jiajun, who moved from bronze to silver, remained neutral saying: "I respect the decision of the referee, I'm not going to say any more". ^[3] Australian Steven Bradbury, the 1000 m gold-medal winner, also shared his views: "Whether Dong-Sung moved across enough to be called for cross-tracking, I don't know, he obviously moved across a bit. It's the judge's interpretation. A lot of people will say it was right and a lot of people will say it's wrong. I've seen moves like that before that were not called. But I've seen them called too". ^{[3] [4]}

The South Korean team immediately protested the decision of the chief official of the race, but their protests were denied by the International Skating Union (ISU). ^{[5] [4] [6]} The South Korean team then appealed to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). ^{[5] [6]} The IOC refused to see the case, stating, "This is a matter for the ISU to decide on. At this time, the IOC has received no proposal and taken no action". ^[5] The CAS sided with the officials of the race as "there is no provision in the short-track rule book for overturning a judgment call by the referee" after the South Korean team asked to have a video replay be used to determine whether or not there was a rule violation. ^{[5] [6]}

The disqualification of Kim upset South Korean supporters, many of whom directed their anger at Ohno and the IOC. A large number of e-mails protesting the race results crashed the IOC's email server, and thousands of accusatory letters, many of which contained death threats, were sent to Ohno and the IOC. ^{[5] [7] [8] [9] [10]} South Korean media accused Ohno of simulating foul, using the Konglish word "Hollywood action". ^[11] Ohno shared his thoughts on the Koreans' hostile reaction by saying, "I was really bothered by it. I grew up around many Asian cultures, Korean one of them. A lot of my best friends were Korean growing up. I just didn't understand. Later on I realized that was built up by certain people and that was directed at me, negative energy from other things, not even resulting around the sport, but around politics, using me to stand on the pedestal as the anti-American sentiment". ^{[12] [13]} Earlier the same year, President George Bush had named North Korea as one of three members of the Axis of Evil, which had upset some South Koreans; directing their anger at Ohno was a less direct way of voicing anger against Bush's decision. ^[14] The controversy continued at the 2002 FIFA World Cup, held jointly in South Korea and Japan several months after the Olympics. ^[15] When the South Korean soccer team scored a goal during the group stage match against the U.S. team, South Korean players Ahn Jung-Hwan and Lee Chun-Soo made an exaggerated move imitating the move Ohno had made during the speed skating event to imply the other athlete had drifted into his lane. ^[15]

References

• Epstein, Adam. Sports Law (The West Legal Studies Series): Volume 2002, Clifton Park, NY : Thomson/Delmar Learning, 2003. ISBN   978-0-7668-2324-2.

1. "Short Track Speed Skating at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games: Men's 1,500 metres". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
2. "Salt Lake City 2002 Official Report - Volume 3" (PDF). Salt Lake Organizing Committee. LA84 Foundation. 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 February 2012.
3. "Ohno finishes second, then first as winner is disqualified". St. Petersburg Times. 24 August 2002. Archived from the original on 8 December 2008. Retrieved 14 March 2008.
4. "South Korean DQ'd; officials promise protest". ESPN . 23 February 2002. Archived from the original on 10 December 2008. Retrieved 14 March 2008.
5. "Ohno disqualified in 500, U.S. falls in 5,000 relay". Associated Press. 23 February 2002. Archived from the original on 1 March 2006. Retrieved 16 February 2007– via ESPN.
6. Epstein (2002), 272–273.
7. "Skating union rejects protest of South Korean's DQ". Associated Press. 21 February 2002. Archived from the original on 29 October 2006. Retrieved 16 February 2007– via CNN.
8. 강훈상 (21 February 2002). 동계올림픽 쇼트트랙 판정에 네티즌 분노 '폭발' [Netizens explode their anger over short track ruling at the Winter Olympics]. Yonhap News Agency . Retrieved 22 August 2021– via Naver.
9. 강훈상 (21 February 2002). 美 쇼트트랙 오노선수 홈페이지 '다운' [Website of American short track player Ohno crashed]. Yonhap News Agency . Retrieved 22 August 2021– via Naver.
10. 이정진 (22 February 2002). IOC 홈페이지 마비 사태 [IOC's website paralyzed]. Yonhap News Agency . Retrieved 22 August 2021– via Naver.
11. "Ohno slammed by Koreans in bitter echo of 2002". Agence France-Presse. 16 February 2002. Archived from the original on 20 February 2010. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
12. Gold, Eric. "Speedskating's Apolo Anton Ohno". The Seoul Times. The Sports Network. Archived from the original on 23 March 2006. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
13. Crouse, Karen (16 February 2006). "Ohno Is hoping for victories and thaw in icy relations with South Koreans". The New York Times. pp. 1–2. Archived from the original on 11 November 2012. Retrieved 13 August 2009.
14. Demick, Barbara; Chi Jung Nam (26 February 2002). "Many South Koreans See Skating Loss as Part of U.S. Plot". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 6 November 2012. Retrieved 22 February 2010.
15. Cazeneuve, Brian (13 December 2004). "Korean Hostility". Sports Illustrated. Time Inc. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 2 November 2014– via CNN.