The source for speed skating and short track speed skating at the Vancouver Olympics.
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VANCOUVER -- If things go to plan, Apolo Ohno will line up with a few other skaters at the starting line of the men's 1000m short track final sometime after 8 p.m. PT tonight.
To get there, the American will have to advance through the quarterfinals and semifinals of the event. And that's not all he'll have to contend with.
The South Korean team, angry with Ohno for what it thought was overly aggressive racing during last Saturday's 1500m final, is out to get the 27-year-old Seattle native. Comments made by Lee Jung-Su -- "Ohno didn't deserve to stand on the same medal platform as me," he said this week -- riled up South Korean residents. Anti-Ohno sentiment is spreading through South Korea faster than Ohno makes his tight corners on the ice.
Ohno finished second in the 1500m after two other South Koreans crashed in the final turn.
If Ohno is able to reach tonight's finals, there will be history on the line. He already tied Bonnie Blair's U.S. winter Olympic record of six career medals with his silver last weekend. The performance made him the most decorated U.S. male winter Olympian in history, and he's also the most successful short track skater ever.
Check out a collection of highlights from the men's 1500m short track event.
Photos of Apolo Ohno in the 1500m event on Feb. 13.
With a medal tonight -- gold, silver, or bronze -- Ohno will be the most decorated U.S. winter Olympian ever.
With the help of the NBC Research Room, we put together some notable facts and figures from Ohno's illustrious career.
6: Ohno has six career Olympic medals. Two gold, two silver, two bronze.
2: Ohno has two career medals in the 1000m (silver, 2002; bronze, 2006). He's the only American in history to medal in the event. It's also the only individual race in which he has not won a gold medal.
1500m: This event debuted at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, and Ohno won its first-ever Olympic gold medal that year.
4: Ohno is one of four Americans to win at least three medals at a single Winter Games. The others are Eric Heiden (five, 1980), Sheila Young (three, 1976) and Chad Hedrick (three, 2006). Ohno won three medals four years ago in Torino.
2: Ohno's first two medals, which came at the 2002 Olympics, had memorable finishes. The 1000m, in which he finished second, featured a crash on the final straightaway. Ohno slid across the finish line on his backside. In the 1500m, South Korean Kim Dong-Sung was disqualified for interference at the end of the race, allowing Ohno to claim the gold medal. That created the intense U.S. vs. South Korea rivalry that was rejuvenated in last weekend's 1500m final.
14: Ohno won his first U.S. short track title as a 14-year-old in the 1996-97 season.
1000m: Ohno won the 1000m at the last major international event before Vancouver, a World Cup stop in Marquette, Mich.
-Jason Devaney
Swimming star and 14-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps visits the Olympic Winter Games.
They aren't worrying about a potential gold-medal match up with Canada; they aren't thinking about retirement; aren't concerned about losing six-straight exhibition games to Canada in fall 2009.
