Hey, a gold medal in something other than short-track!
South Korea’s Mo Tae-bum won the men’s 500-meter speed skating event at the Vancouver Winter Olympics Monday, bringing home the country’s first ever gold medal in speed skating.
Mo clocked in at 69.82 seconds in the 500m event held at Richmond Olympic Oval, nudging out Japanese rivals Keiichiro Nagashima and Joji Kato.
Cool!
{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }
Among others, Tae-bum thanked his sister – Mo Bu-tae – for her support.
오— 필승 코리아!
Iceberg I wish I could give you 10 thumbs up for that.
Wouldn’t it be cool if the title of this post was “Korean Wins 500m Speed Dating”?
All props to the medalist Mo, but this is an event I would much rather see.
Figure skating gold coming soon…!… (hopefully)
I don’t get it. What’s the difference between short track and speed skating? Is short track not about speed? I could see short track OR long track but there’s short track AND speed skating?
Thank you, KrZ. But then you’d be all thumbs. BadaBAM!!!
To follow up on Yuna’s theory about Korean names on the Ohno thread, if there were a figure skater named Mo Bu-tae, I guarantee people would take notice.
@Mr. Chips
As far as I can recall, speed skating was around first and then they invented the short track variety. The sporting body of the former didn’t feel the need to change its name.
It is simply unfathomable how atrocious SBS’ coverage of these games have been so far. I tuned in this morning to see some downhill skiiing (a flagship event no less) and snowboarding and all I saw was short and long track skating replays non-stop. The behaviour of the commentators toward the atheletes was appaling. Constanting talking about the physical appearance of the athletes without providing any information regrading their careers. They weren’t gracious at all when it came to their fervor for the Korean athletes. This from a country that wants to hold the Winter games. SBS should be utterly ashamed. I’m all for helping Koreans cheer their athletes but not over and over and over again and not exclusively. It’s just not in the Olympic spirit
IThey ahve exclusive braodcasting rights to the World Cup too and I’m terrified of not being able to see other teams play. SBS needs to wise up, they cut off a Chelsea game half through to go to a Lee Chungyong game. It is simply unheard of to broadcast half a game. After staying awake to watch Man U play as advertised they switch to a Bolton and Lee Chungyong game at the last minute. I’m a big Chungyong fan but his team are second last. Wise up SBS…. worst sports channel EVER.
Sorry but this is sensitive for me.
Hey, I wanna vent too… NBC’s public channel didn’t air 500m speedskating *at all*. Did they show it on other cable channels? It really is only during the Olympics that I regret not subscribing to cable.
Korean commentators ought to come up with a different strategy for celebrating when their athletes win gold. Maybe they can all agree on singing the 애국가 in unison every time a medal is confirmed. That’d be so much cooler than screaming their heads off in random fashion.
@Choon: you probably already know this – but just in case – SBS is broadcasting the games on two channels (of course – showing different events).
Helluva birthday present for this athlete, especially since he was ranked 14th in the world before this.
The difference between short track and speed skating should be obvious after observing several heats in both. It’s like having a drag race in a highway (speed skating) vs. having a drag race in a parking facility (short track).
Tuesday Morning SBS played short track on one channel and long track on the other. Fortunately tonight they played some snowboarding and figure skating (wife is a fan) but not a peep of downhill skiing.
Mr. Chips,
Quick summary
Short track – done in heats and on an ice hockey sized rink. The corners are much tighter and there is a ton of contact and jockying for position. The winner is the one who crosses the finish line first.
Long track – done in pairs and timed on a 400m oval. The winner is determined by the overall time (or combined time of two races). Overall skating technique the most important here as the skaters are separated into lanes.
– Teamwork plays a vital role in short track and when you have an amazing top-to-bottom team like Korea it definitely pays dividends.
– Short track requires much tighter corners
– Short track needs strategies and techniques such as establishing position and holding positions
I think that long track requires much more mental training too as the person you are paired with is pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things as you are racing the clock. It is pretty tough to pace/focus when you are all alone on the track.
– short track (in Korea) is sexy. The rock stars of the game so to speak and thus most of the top skaters went that route.
Just my thoughts.
@the Goat
I dunno… the long track has charms of its own… speed skaters tend to look much more graceful and elegant than the erratic and frantic (albeit much more exciting and tense) short track skaters because of their focus on technique and mental strength that you mention.
@ MrChips, The Goat
Also, from a physical standpoint, short-track seems better suited for shorter and smaller skaters while long track consists of mostly taller and larger skaters. I feel like the two types of speed skating are like weight classes in boxing where the lightweights are short-trackers and the heavyweights are long-trackers. And similar to the different strategies employed in short vs. long track, light and heavyweight boxers also use different strategies and techniques.
Tae-bum is 5’10″ and 160 lbs. His three counterparts in short-track are all at least 20 lbs lighter, and, with the exception of Sung Si-bak, they are also shorter. Tae-bum is no giant, but he is definitely larger.
I can’t wait until whatever-her-name-is wins the figure skating gold and everyone in Korea regrets buying a non-dmb capable iphone! HAH!
Hey! What are you talking about? It comes with a YouTube icon!……..(facepalm)……..
Youtube isn’t live..ugh
Well done Mr. Mo! His victory along with silver medalist Lee Sung-hoon in 5000m and the powerhouse, Japan in speed skating, tells that the Western dominance of speed skating is over. More funds will be budgeted; more and more wanna be kids will join the team!
Go Korea Go!
This Winter Olympics totally changed the Vancouverites life, thousands thousands of people in downtown streets at midnight cheering team Canada. It just turned quite, polite, respectful Canadians or Vancouverites at least, to loud, wild, patriotic ones. Just like the American. It’s just great experiences and moments except one thing that I don’t like the odd choice for Vancouver Olympic Committee on broccoli like bouquet presenting to medalists. Enjoy it!
Go Canada Go!
Got in a taxi this morning, and on the driver’s DMB and cranked up thru the speakers — replay of the 500m Gold. I almost had to pay the 30,000 puke surcharge.
There’s seriously a puke surcharge? LOL that’s fucking awesome. Now when are they gonna start charging people serious money for traffic violations is what I’m wondering…
They don’t give citations for that stuff, they only give out “speed medals”.
Another Gold medal from long track speedskating! Lee Sang-Hwa won the women’s 500m speedskating Olympic title this afternoon, ahead of Germany’s Jenny Wolf and China’s Wang Beixing! Hooray!
@JiMong,
Ohno said he would have won that race had he not been born with a penis.
Whoa baby another gold for Korea in women’s 500! 경사났네 경사났어!
Damn, she’s kinda hot too…
I bet she’s got some stroooong legs… JW.
hahaha, one commenter on chosun.com says we should call her 금벅지.
Wangkon, won’t you do a post for the Women’s gold as well? Surely we need to give gbevers the opportunity to post pictures of Koreans pushing, and all the Koreans behaving badly, to give opportunity to say speed skating is the most corrupt sport etc for the lot who’s gone completely silent after the men’s gold.
“they gonna start charging people serious money for traffic violations is what I’m wondering… ”
within weeks there’d be no korean taxi drivers left solvent and in business…..
http://news.donga.com/Vancouver/3/050108/20100217/26243557/1&top=1
Ha ha ha! Hands down the funniest korean news article about the skating so far.
Anyone know of a website other than NBC where you can see olympic highlight videos?
God I really hate NBC for blocking access to *replay* videos for non cable subscribers. THE FUCKERS!!!
NBC’s coverage of the Olympics really has been one epic failure.
Are Koreans a super-race? Beating the Germans and the Japanese.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/assetid=afb3eccc-664c-4209-8654-c0c297961984.html#speed+skating+lee+wins+500m+gold
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/assetid=6ff661c2-753e-421e-b4da-bb691f7b11b4.html#speed+skating+mo+wins+500m+gold
I can’t believe you just said that.
Are Koreans a super-race?
This kind of shit just doesn’t have the same effect without the Krazy Kat avatar.
‘don’t expect much from korea. they don’t have any real abilities like the japanese do.’ army guy to pawi in the 70s.
‘we’ll see.’ pawi
While training in Korea, Ohno learned the signal between Koreans to “get inside the track”. So while on the 4th place, he shouted the signal word. Two Korean skaters thought that the word came from the Korean coach. So, they jumped inside together, resulting in the horror.
Ohno is such an evil character. The arch-enemy of Korean people. Koreans hate the Japanese. Some Koreans hate Americans. A JapaneseAmerican? Ohno!
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/assetid=82ea672a-f9e4-42fe-8bc4-7003eba630c3.html#short+track+mens+1500m+highlights
KrZ and Iceberg,
Man, the evidence is in the ice. In the ice! Mo TaeBum and Lee SangHwa are Koreans. And, they are the best 500 m speed skaters in the world.
In the world! Koreans!
Are you going to say they paid off judges?
No, but any talk of a “super race” reeks of the ideologies the Nazis and Imperialist Japanese used to justify their conquests of Europe and Asia. As such that sort of talk is considered highly inappropriate in the West and is generally confined to Neo-Nazis and various other extremist groups. Not trying to pick on you here, just explaining how it comes across.
LOL at super-race stuff. This is either the ultimate troll comment or a new low in MH racism.
Warn me next time so I don’t spew coffee on my monitor.
Mo wins a silver in 1000m as well.
Go Korea. 필승!
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