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Ohno skates a speedy 1500m
By Maria Titze
Deseret News staff writer
KEARNS — With a performance U.S. short-track speed skating coach Susan Ellis laughingly described as "a little bit sluggish," Olympic medal hopeful Apolo Anton Ohno unofficially broke a world record in the men's 1500 meter Saturday afternoon at the Olympic trials.
"He skated well, but really that was not his best technique," Ellis said of the Seattle native's 2-minute 13.728-second finish.
Ohno and teammate Rusty Smith of Sunset Beach, Calif., currently in second place behind Ohno in the trials' overall standings, are both suffering upper respiratory infections this week, according to Ellis.
Ohno attributed his record-breaking speed to a pack of seven other competitors in the final race of the day.
"You just want to be in the front" with so many skaters racing at once, Ohno said. "It takes too much energy to catch up if you get stuck in the back." Competitive strategy and particularly fast ice at the Utah Olympic Oval both contributed to a record-breaking race overall.
The current world record in the 1500 meter, 2:15.383, set by Canadian Steve Robillard in Calgary in October, was bested Saturday not only by Ohno, but by Smith's second place finish at 2:13.893 and the third-place time of Tommy O'Hare, St. Louis, Mo., 2:14.696.
World records are made official by the International Skating Union in June.
Ellis predicts a "friendly rivalry for boasting privileges" for the fastest ice between the Kearns oval and the indoor oval in Calgary, with "the difference being the altitude, maybe." But the quick ice in Kearns won't matter to short-track skaters come the Olympics in February. This is the home of long track speed skating during the Games. Short track speed skaters will share the ice with figure skating at the Delta Center in downtown Salt Lake City.
"It's faster than we thought it would be," Ellis said of the ice at the Delta Center, where the Olympic qualifiers were held at the end of October.
That event determined how many athletes teams from countries all over the world would be allowed to send to the Olympics.
This competition, which continues through next weekend, determines which athletes make the U.S. Olympic team.
It was a messy day on the ice for the first of two 1500-meter competitions to be held during the trials. During the first heat of the men's semifinals only two of six skaters crossed the finish line without falling. In the second heat J.P. Kepka, also of St. Louis, was disqualified after judges ruled he impeded Ron Biondo of Broadview Heights, Ohio, in a fall that sent them both careening across the ice.
The fall left Biondo with a hip injury that resulted in a eighth place finish in the subsequent final race.
But the most spectacular crash of the day came in the ladies' final, when front-runners Allison Baver of Sinking Spring, Pa., and Julie Goskowicz of Colorado Springs, Colo., tumbled after an attempted pass by Erin Porter of Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Porter was later disqualified for impeding.
"It wasn't a dirty move. It's just (they) want to make the Olympic team," Ellis said after the day's competition. "There's a lot of adrenaline working out there. Allison was skating a perfect race there, too. It breaks my heart to see the race won and lost like that — for any of the athletes."
Amy Peterson of Maplewood, Minn., ended up winning the women's 1500-meter final with a time of 2:23.012. Caroline Hallisey of Natick, Mass., placed second at 2:23.292 and Penelope Lang of Lincoln, Mass., took third with a time of 2:35.926.
The trials continue Sunday with the men's and women's 1000-meter race.
E-mail: mtitze@desnews.com
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December 16, 2001
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