It’s an ‘Oh, Canada!’ Day

The catch phrase for two weeks at the Olympics has been, “Ohno? Oh, yes!”

But Saturday night at the Delta Center, short-track speedskating star Apolo Anton Ohno’s name was prophetic for the U.S. team.

It was “Oh, no!” in the men’s 500-meter race, from which Ohno was disqualified, then “Oh, no!” again in the 5,000 relay, when Rusty Smith stepped on a lane block and fell, leaving the Americans to finish fourth, a lap behind the winning Canadians. Italy won the silver medal, China the bronze.

Smith, of Sunset Beach, gave the U.S. its only bright spot, earning the bronze in the 500.

“I’ve been here twice now,” he said. “I’m finally coming away with something I’m really excited about.”

The big winner Saturday was Canada. Marc Gagnon and Jonathan Guilmette won gold and silver in the men’s 500, then joined Francois-Louis Tremblay and Mathieu Turcotte in successfully defending Canada’s title in the 5,000 relay.

Yang Yang (A) of China won her second gold medal of the Games in the women’s 1,000, having earlier won the 500. She finished ahead of 1,500 winner Ko Gi Hyun of South Korea and her unrelated teammate, Yang Yang (S).

Ohno, for whom some had predicted four medals, is not going home to Seattle empty-handed, however. He won a gold and a silver in earlier races.

“My first Games and I got two medals,” he said. “There’s nothing better than that.

“I think we were in perfect position [in the relay]. No doubt in my mind, if we wouldn’t have went down and I was there in the end, I could have done some magic. But that’s how it is. We hit a block or something and it just happened. Short-track is such a crazy sport.”

Ohno got as far as the semifinals in the 500, then was disqualified for obstructing Japanese skater Satoru Terao. Starting from the inside position, Ohno got off slowly and dropped to third, behind Guilmette and Terao. Moving inside on the last lap, Ohno tangled with Terao and sent him spinning into the boards.

“It was a good call,” Ohno said. “I tried to set up the Japanese skater on the inside. I tried to hold the track and ran out of room.”

With Ohno on the sideline, Smith went immediately to the lead in the 500 final and held it through four laps. Then, with half a lap left, Gagnon passed him for the lead, and Guilmette got by him at the finish line. The U.S. team was skating second in the relay, behind Canada, when Smith went crashing into the boards.

“I hit a block and got caught between my boot and the ice,” he said. “I had no part of my blade on the ice. It was completely my fault.... I apologized to all [of my teammates].”

No apology necessary, said Dan Weinstein, who skated the relay with Smith, Ohno and Ron Biondo.

“All of us understand that this can happen,” Weinstein said. “We can’t be mad.”

The night’s activities ended a tumultous Olympics for Ohno and the short-track team.

In qualifying for the 5,000 relay final 10 days ago, Smith and South Korean Min Ryoung collided, Smith keeping his feet but the Korean sliding hard into the boards and requiring a visit to the hospital. The South Koreans were disqualified for interference and the race was re-skated.

Then a week ago, Ohno, apparently on his was to victory, was involved in a spectacular four-skater crash at the finish of the 1,000-meter race.

With Ohno leading coming out of the last turn, Li Jiajun of China went down, taking South Korean Ahn Hyun Soo, Turcotte and Ohno with him.

Australian Steven Bradbury, who had been fifth, collected a free gold medal and Ohno had the presence of mind to scramble across the finish line for the silver. Ohno suffered a gash in the melee and needed stitches to close the cut in his inner thigh.

Four days later, however, he won the 1,500 in another controversial finish.

Ohno finished behind South Korean Kim Dong Sung but threw his hands in the air just before the finish and Kim was disqualified for cross-tracking, stepping in front of another skater, Ohno in this case.

A Korean protest was ultimately rejected and early Saturday, an appeal to an arbitration panel also was turned down.

In preliminary racing Saturday, defending Olympic champion Takafumi Nishitani of Japan missed qualifying for the 500 final when he finished third in a quarterfinal.