Apolo Anton Ohno’s last go-round

The likely end to Apolo Anton Ohno’s Olympic career arrives Friday. And it will come with a flourish, amid the mass chaos of a 5,000-meter short-track relay, which prompted Ohno to preempt headaches or utter confusion for any interested viewers.

“People watching back home are going to be like, ‘What the hell is going on -- there are too many people on the ice!’ ” Ohno said. “But we know what’s going on. So that’s OK. Just watch the last four laps, that’s all that really matters.”

After his record seventh career Winter Games medal, Ohno accordingly circled the oval at Pacific Coliseum with seven fingers held up, and regardless of the medal count on Friday he’ll have a digit to spare.

The 500-meter sprint and the 5,000-meter relay are last on his docket. He joked after preliminary heats that he hopes he still has the speed he had four years ago in order merely to make the final of the 500. He was more optimistic about the relay chances. Whether that translates to stacking Olympic hardware nine-high, who knows, but his teammates won’t be the ones to doubt it.

“Apolo is in the best shape of his life, and he’s definitely a force to be reckoned with,” Simon Cho said. “I definitely wouldn’t count him out. He’s explosive, he’s strong, he’s experienced, he’s seasoned. Apolo has it all. I definitely wouldn’t count him out for the 500 gold medal.”

There indeed may be a necessary change to Ohno’s approach in the 500 meters, where his pattern of laying back, surveying the action and then making a late charge might need be altered every round he advances.

“You can and you can’t [be patient],” Ohno said. “It requires a little bit of patience for every single second during the lap. But I guess that fuse will have to be shorter and shorter the more you advance. You’ll see that there’s very little space for passing. If you’re not a really small guy and there’s not a lot of room, chances are you might be stuck there the whole race.”

Katherine Reutter will be stuck alone as she pursues a medal in the women’s 1,000-meter race Friday, the only one of three U.S. skaters to advance out of the preliminaries. She did so with a flourish of her own, setting an Olympic record, but would rather have company.

“Honestly, I don’t want to blame it on luck, but it does seem like little things just keep coming up and happening to one person or another,” Reutter said. “Things that we’re not necessarily totally in control of, which is the worst part about our sport. Sometimes you’re not in control.”

It’s the challenge facing Ohno as he approaches perhaps his final night of Olympic racing. He likely passes the mantel to skaters much younger after that, but there are two final golden opportunities at hand.

“I understand that Apolo cherishes the journey more than the destination,” Cho said, “but while on the journey, why not snatch up a couple more gold medals while you’re at it?”

bchamilton@tribune.com