XXI Olympics - Speed Skating

SPEED SKATING - 1500 METERS: Trevor Marsicano made his Olympic debut skating respectably but not well enough. He was a full second behind the Korean that he skated against. Nonetheless, he does have the assurance of future Olympics, should he choose.

Shani Davis took the corners faster than the Dutchman. The straight-aways did him in. He missed out on the gold medal although he will be adding the silver medal to the gold medal from Torino.

Chad Hedrick skated against a Netherland and came in fifth. He was fast, but he didn't seem to have that fire in him to really let loose. He didn't medal.

SPEED SKATING - 1000 METERS

Quarter finals

Apolo Ohno skates for his Seventh Olympic medal. How exciting is that! When the race began, he assumed third position. It is his custom to remain toward the back of the pack until the end when he makes his move. Toward the end, he was in third position and made a move to second. This secured his spot in the quarterfinal.

JR Celski took the second position in his quarterfinal. The person in third almost overtook him toward the end, but Celski was able to hold on to his position.

How great were things looking, two Americans were moving on to the semi-finals!

In the first semi-finals, Celski was on the rink. When the gun sounded Celski took the first position. He quickly was passed by one other. There was a collision leaving Celski third in the pack so he wouldn't advance to the final round. He was found to be the cause of the collision so he was disqualified.

In the second semi-finals Ohno took fourth position right away. He quickly inserted himself into third position. He continued the entire race in third. The last corner of the race found Ohno moved cut from the outside to the inside while the people in the first two positions were on the outside track. Ohno avoided being pushed into third or worse, colliding. He finished the semi-finals in first position.

The air was electric as the finals were about to commence. He started out third out of five skaters. The two Canadians were in front of him and the two Koreans were behind him. When they were coming around a curve, Ohno stumbled and the two Koreans took advantage of this. While they passed him and subsequently the Canadians, Ohno was quick to recover and passed the Canadians. Nevertheless, the Koreans took gold and silver, while Ohno will come home with the bronze. This was his seventh medal, surpassing Bonnie Blair who had the record at six medals. He can be proud of the fact that he set a record for winning the most medals at a Winter Olympics.