Apolo Ohno

Apolo Ohno Breaks record for most metals in Winter Olympics.

Apolo Ohno is used to being at the head of the pack in short-track speedskating. The 27-year-old has no regrets about giving himself another shot at the Olympics. "I'm glad I made the right decision," he said. "And that I'm here."

To this day, a lot of people think he jumped the gun in his first race in 2006.
Of course they do, right? It's the Olympics and it's Apolo Anton Ohno, and the guy has high drama embedded in his DNA.
It was the last night of competition at the 2006 Turin Winter Games. The curtain closer on a couple of weeks in Italy that had not gone well for Ohno or, for that matter, America.
The 500-meter sprint. This race — one and a quarter times around a track inside a hockey rink — is all about the start. Blink, you lose. High stakes, fried nerves. Chances at redemption. Twice, skaters in the pack of five — coiled up like Lycra-clad snakes at the start line — jumped the starter's gun.
So Ohno, being Ohno, figured now would be a good moment to "time the start."
"You know what? This is it, man!" he told himself. "I'm going to try to time this bad boy."
That, he did. When the starter's pistol cracked the third time, Ohno already had a half-stride on the pack. Sprinting with the calm dignity of a cat being chased by Dobermans, Ohno led from start to finish, blasting across the finish line to claim gold.
The feat, if it didn't save the Olympics for America, at least avoided the indignity of losing in the medal count to the Canadians. It was vintage Ohno.
"Honestly? I think I just timed it perfectly," he says, four years later. "If you watch it in slow-mo, it looks like I jumped," he insists. "If you watch it in regular I timed the start."
He laughs again.
"They didn't call it back, so ... "

So it was written: Ohno's fourth Olympic medal. Later that night, he would claim a fifth, in the team relay, tying him with speedskating legend Eric Heiden for the most medals won by a U.S. male Winter Olympian.
I'm glad I made the right decision," he says. "And that I'm here."
From the time he was 14, Apolo Anton Ohno has been many things to many people, but boring has never been one of them. His first Olympic medal was won as he crawled across the finish line, blood trailing from one thigh, in Salt Lake City in 2002.
There's a reason Ohno is the first guy you see when NBC starts endlessly pitching the 2010 Vancouver Games to the public. Lots of them, actually.
Ohno has grown, before our eyes, from a precocious inline-skate punk from Federal Way into a literal Olympics ambassador.
Easily lost in the footlights of his fame is that Ohno, a master of a sport requiring an uncommon marriage of power, finesse, reflex and smarts, is one of the remarkable athletes of his generation.

"I'm leaner than I've ever been, lighter than I've ever been," says Ohno, who lives in Seattle. "The other thing is, I love what I'm doing, more than I ever have in the past. I really do. This sport has not gotten any easier for me. In fact, it's gotten harder. But I love it."

Sometimes, he admits, he has to talk himself into it. That first workout of the day is hard to start. The third one is tough to finish. In between, Ohno in the past several months has frequently taken to the blogosphere, posting multiple daily affirmations on Facebook, Twitter and his Web page.
"Tired, but still pushing on," he tweeted Jan. 29. "Many distractions right now — yet I'm staying on track."
"To be or not to be," he posted another time. "I'm about being better than yesterday. Post-2010, come train with me — I'll help you achieve your goals!"
Another day: "No distractions. Make a step in the rt direction 2day. Get in yr zone. Stay focused. Live now!"
It is manna to his many fans. But Ohno says all the sports-psych stuff is for his benefit, as well.
"It's almost like reiteration of what I want to feel like," he says. "It's almost like reminding myself, and motivating myself: 'Hey, look where you're at today. Look where you've got to go.' "

Ohno gets mail almost daily from fans who tell him he has, in some way, changed their lives. He thinks to himself: "All I've really ever done is skate."
He plans to offer payback via a post-Games nutritional-supplement business venture, the 8Zone, which will incorporate the decade of sport science Ohno has absorbed. If the business is profitable, he plans to plow money back into Olympic sports, through sponsorships.

In the short term, however, the ice at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum is his sole focus.
"This is very special," he says of the Vancouver Games, the site of his first competitive races as a young teen. "It's special for my father, for me, for all my friends who are going to be there."
His course, near and far, is set. Unlike most Winter Olympians, Ohno has enough sponsorship money to keep him financially comfortable — and a career course is laid out before him. And he is savvy enough to relish every remaining step of what he always has referred to as a journey.
"When I'm done skating, I guarantee you that I will not look back and remember standing on the podium," he says, looking wistful. "I'm going to remember these days — being with the team. Training alone, in my basement. Training when everybody else is sleeping. Doing things that nobody else is doing. Digging down. Seeing what kind of character I truly have. I love that stuff."
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"I've never prepared like this in my life — for anything," he says. "I want to leave nothing on the table."