Ohno Arrives in Korea

Apolo Ohno has arrived in South Korea for the first time since winning Olympic Gold in Salt Lake City which caused a nation wide hatred of Ohno in Korea:

But Ohno’s appearance at the second World Cup meet of the year clearly struck a nerve with South Koreans, who were livid when one of their skaters, Kim Dong-sung, finished first in the 1,500 meters at Salt Lake City but was disqualified for blocking Ohno — giving gold to the U.S. skater.

An estimated 100 riot police stood guard as Ohno arrived at Incheon International Airport outside Seoul on Monday, ensuring no one carried out threats that were made against him after his Olympic victory.

Ohno wanted to hold a news conference for local reporters to explain his side of what happened in Salt Lake City, but organizers restricted his access to the media, according to the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Makes me wonder why the Korean organizers are restricting his access to the media? Here is what Ohno thinks about it:

“I really wanted to set something up,” Ohno said in a telephone interview on his way to practice early Tuesday. “People have questions about what I’ve been doing the past couple of years. I want them to know I’m excited to be here. I want to put a lot of things on the table. A lot of Koreans are not familiar with me. They only know what they see on the news or what somebody else says. I want to let them know a little bit about me and take it from there.”

Maybe the organizers are afraid that average Koreans might read something like this from 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.”

Printing something like this may cause some people not to hate him any more. We can’t have that.