Apolo’s Day in the Sun

If this was the end of his Olympic career in short-track speedskating, Apolo Anton Ohno made it a glorious finale, winning gold Saturday night in the 500 meters and then adding a bronze with a stunning sprint in the anchor leg of the 5,000-meter relay.

Ohno, 23, racing from the front in the 500, as is his style, opting for a red bandana to accent his soul patch, finished just ahead of Canada’s Francois-Louis Tremblay, last year’s world champion in the 500. South Korean Ahn Hyun-soo, winner of gold here at the Turin Games in the 1,500 and 1,000, took the bronze. Ohno’s winning time was 41.935 seconds.

For Ohno, winner of a controversial gold and silver after collision-marred races at the 2002 Salt Lake Games, the 500 firmly fixed his place in Olympic history: undisputed champion.

He had won a bronze earlier in these Games, in the 1,000, and his showing here also underscored a saying often heard in short-track circles, that the sport is currently the province of four nations: South Korea, China, Canada and Apolo Anton Ohno.

Except for the relay, no other U.S. men won anything in short-track racing. The U.S. women won nothing. South Korea dominated the 2006 Olympics with 10 medals in short-track; China won five, Canada four, Ohno three.

Ohno’s two medals Saturday allowed him to match the U.S. record for men’s Winter Games medals in a career, set by Eric Heiden, the long-track speedskating legend. Heiden won five golds, all in 1980.

Ohno’s showing also lifted the overall U.S. medal count to 25, second best in U.S. history, after the record 34 won four years ago in Salt Lake.

After the 500 heats here Wednesday, Ohno, sounding wistful, had said he would decide in the “next couple months” whether to keep at it in hopes of making it to the 2010 Games in Vancouver, Canada, just up the road from his Seattle home.

Late Saturday, Ohno was slow leaving the ice. He posed for pictures. He signed autographs.

Asked what comes next, he said, “I don’t know. I don’t know yet. I have to figure out what my next journey is going to be.”

In the women’s 1,000, Jin Sun-yu of South Korea won in 1:32.859, just ahead of Wang Meng of China. Jin is the first Korean to win three golds in one Olympics. She also won the 1,500 and was part of the winning 3,000-meter relay.

Yang Yang (A) of China took bronze in the women’s 1,000, capping a career in which she won two gold medals at the 2002 Games.

Kimberly Derrick, 20, of Caledonia, Mich., was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the women’s 1,000 -- racing the day after her grandfather, Darrel Edwards, 74, died of a heart attack here in Turin. She ended up being disqualified after a tangle with Liesbeth Mau Asam of Holland.

“I’m proud to be at the Olympics and at the same time my heart hurts so much,” she said in a statement issued afterward by Olympic officials.

The other U.S. racer in the women’s 1,000, Halie Kim, 17, of Colorado Springs, Colo., failed to make it out of the semifinals.

Ohno had said after the preliminary heats on Wednesday that the 500, more than any other race, was a “crapshoot.”

Even for short-track, the 500 is particularly dicey because it’s such a short race, 4 1/2 laps, and because the racer who draws the innermost starting position can wield a tactical advantage. Ohno drew the inside position.

After two false starts, first on Eric Bedard of Canada, then on Jon Eley of Britain, the gun went off.

Ohno appeared to be moving a fraction of a second before the gun, at least his upper body. He said later he thought he had “timed the start just perfect.”

No false start was called, and out Ohno went, to the front -- where he stayed the entire race, the Palavela rocking with noise as he crossed the finish line, his eyes wide, his arms above his head, touchdown-style.

“Just emotion, so much emotion and passion,” he said later. “Everything was running through my mind. It was crazy.”

In the relay, a 45-lap event in which each skater pulls two laps, then gives way to fresh legs, the South Koreans set an Olympic record, winning in 6 minutes 43.376 seconds. Canada came in second. Ohno’s sprint over the final two laps gave the Americans bronze over Italy.

The others on the U.S. team: Rusty Smith, fourth here in the 1,000 and a bronze medalist in 2002 in the 500; J.P. Kepka and Alex Izykowski.

On the podium, Ohno was the last of the four Americans on the relay team to get his bronze medal. His right arm went up in a fist of triumph -- in all, over two editions of the Winter Olympics, two gold medals, one silver, two bronze.

“This whole experience has been very, very touching to my heart,” he said. “This whole Olympic experience is amazing.”