Korea's Most Hated Athlete Wins Dance Competition

The most hated athlete in Korea, Apolo Anton Ohno has won the Dancing with the Stars competition:

Olympian Apolo Ohno celebrated his 25th birthday in style Tuesday night, winning top honors on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars competition.

Ohno, a double-gold medal winner in short-track speed skating, and pro dance partner Julianne Hough, 18, were the youngest competitors in the show’s four seasons. But the couple earned two perfect 10s from Dancing’s judges in three of the competition’s final dances.

"You have incredible chemistry," said judge Carrie Ann Inaba. "You’re such a team."

Ohno and Hough edged former boy band singer Joey Fatone and partner Kym Johnson. Professional boxer Laila Ali — routinely applauded for her elegance and grace on the dance floor — and partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy came in third.

You can read a whole lot more about his win over at his website here.

For those that don’t know, Apolo Ohno is hated in Korea due to him winning Gold Medals in the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics over Korean athletes.  The timing of what happened during the Salt Lake City games just happened to coincide with the soccer World Cup build up in Korea that year followed by the anti-US hatefest in the aftermath of the USFK armored vehicle incident.  For a taste of how hated he is here is a translation of his win in the 2006 Olympics in the Korean media:

Ohno hung a “gold medal of luck” around his neck in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics after acquiring a gold medal through “Hollywood Action” and yet another when he acquired his first gold medal of this competition by holding his advantaged start and leading from start to finish in the 500 meters.

Make sure to read the whole thing.  One of the races in 2006 games that he lost to a Korean skater was actually treated as a celebration, not because a Korean won, but because Ohno lost:

Articles on online editions of major dailies followed the same line as the TV networks.

“The final race was Korea’s celebration party,” the usually staid Maeil Business Newspaper wrote.

South Koreans in the world’s most wired country also showed their joy over the Internet.

“The race without Ohno showed what clean play is all about,” one South Korean wrote on a message board on the popular Internet portal Naver.

“There was no Hollywood ending for Ohno in Turin,” read a separate commentary.

Before Ohno came to Korea in 2005 for the World Cup Championships he received death threats, was voted the most hated athlete in Korea, and had to be met at Incheon Airport by an escort of 100 riot police to protect him.

Than to make matters worse Ohno had a press conference scheduled to give his side of the story to the Korean media and it was cancelled at the last minute and then proceeded to restrict his access to the media during the entire competition.   The organizers did not possibly want the Korean population to hear something like this from the face of evil image that had been built up in Korea of Ohno:

“One guy wins and one guy loses, but it’s not entirely up to him,” Ohno said. “Our sport is so crazy that on any given Sunday, anybody can win. You can run the same race over and over five times, and you’ll probably get five different winners. It’s wild.”

Ohno described South Korea as “the best nation in the world for short-track speedskating” and made it clear that he doesn’t want any hard feelings to linger from his Olympic victory.

“The Korean public has so many fans of short track,” he said. “This is the place to skate. If you’re part of the national team here, you’re definitely one of the best in the world.”

Unfortunately the Korean public wasn’t allowed to hear anything like this from Ohno. 

Than during the competition Ohno received the payback I’m sure he expected by coming to race in South Korea by being disqualified twice during the competition.  Koreans were jubilant about this at the time, however Ohno would rebound and go on to win two Gold Medals and take over the World #1 ranking from South Korean skater Ahn Hyun-soo by the end of the competition.  I was very impressed with the way Ohno handled himself when he came to Korea, despite all the absolutely unjustified xenophobic garbage from some sectors of Korean society.  It is easy to get a defensive and bad attitude when confronted with such nonsense, but he kept a positive attitude his whole time in Korea.

Things have cooled off recently and Ohno actually came back to Korea to train a little last year, but unfortunately to this day most Koreans still consider him the Most Hated Athlete in Korea.  It is amazing how quickly things change because just 10 years ago he was a friend of Korea. 

Despite all this it is good to see Ohno keep a positive attitude about everything and go on to win the Dancing with the Stars competition.  I wish him good luck as he tries to go for Gold again in the 2010 Olympic Games.