Monday, Feb. 20, 2006

TURIN, Italy (AP) The wait was over.

Ahn Hyun Soo of South Korea celebrates in front of Apolo Anton Ohno of the United States after winning the gold medal in the men's 1,000-meter short-track speedskating event at the Winter Games in Turin, Italy.

This time, there were no crashes, no disputed calls, no disqualifications. And no Olympic gold medal for Apolo Anton Ohno. Not even silver. Only bronze.

Ahn Hyun Soo won the 1,000-meter short track speedskating race -- his second gold medal of the games -- and teammate Lee Ho Suk took the silver, getting by Ohno with a brilliant pass on the next-to-last turn Saturday night.

"This is something they thrive on," Ohno said. "The South Koreans have always been very strong."

And very patient. The South Koreans finally got their rematch with Ohno and made the most of it. Unlike the chaos of four years ago in Salt Lake City, when a massive pileup took out Ohno and three others, this race was clean.

"Obviously, I wanted to win the race, but it didn't turn out that way," Ohno said.

He was hot on Ahn's skates in the closing laps. Lee was third, and darted way out near the padded wall to get a better angle on Ohno, cutting in on the American to take second.

"I sped up," Lee said. "I was going for Ohno, but more than that, I was going for the win."

As Ohno crossed the line, he threw up his hands. Known as one of the toughest skaters to pass, he seemed to say, "Oh well, he beat me."

"That was like a 'Wow, couldn't believe it,"' he said. "It was . . . like, 'Man, there was no room to move.' That was kind of my emotion."

The other American, Rusty Smith, finished fourth. China's Li Ye was fifth.

Smith's presence gave Ohno a teammate in the race, but other than taking the early lead, Smith never challenged.

"You have to give it to them," Smith said about Ahn and Lee. "They're on top of their game, but it's not like we're off by a lot. You're talking about minor, minor things."

It was a great night for South Korea's women, too.

Jin Sun Yu and Choi Eun Kyung swept the top two places in the 1,500. Their teammate, Byun Chun Sa, finished third but was disqualified for impeding, giving the bronze to China's Wang Meng. Allison Baver, Ohno's girlfriend, didn't advance from the semifinals.

The bronze gave Ohno a complete set of Olympic medals. In 2002, he won a disputed gold in the 1,500 over another South Korean skater and took silver in the 1,000.

"That feels pretty good," he said.

Ahn has been the dominant skater in the 1,000 this season, and he smoothly moved to the front in the closing laps.

"I have a lot of experience competing against Ohno from years back and it really helped," Ahn said.

In his first event in Turin, Ohno stumbled while attempting a bold pass on the leader in the 1,500 and failed to get out of the semifinals. Ahn won the race and Lee finished second.

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