There was one Korean-American on the U.S. olympic team and he medaled in the 5,000 meter relay for the short track speed skating team.  Simon Cho, an 18 year old speed skater, won the bronze medal with fellow relay members Apolo Ohno, J.R. Celski, and Jordan Malone.

Cho was born in Seoul, South Korea, and began speedskating at age 3 – thanks to a father who saw a son with energy that needed to be channeled.

The family moved to Chicago before settling in Maryland in 2000. Eventually, he hooked up with the current national team coach, Jimmy Jang. Cho moved to Salt Lake City in 2007 – by himself.

“When I first moved to Salt Lake, I was excited,” Cho said. “I was young, I was 15 years old, and I enjoyed being away from home. It was definitely a new realm for me, and I felt like I’d grown up, living on my own. Which wasn’t the case. I thought I’d grown up, but I still had a lot of growing up to do.”

Eventually, Cho’s intense, win-oriented over-training caught up with him. His love for skating was exhausted. But discussions with prominent national team members Shani Davis and Ohno early in 2009 encouraged him to relieve the pressure and free himself to chart a new course.

“Once I was able to regain my passion and love for the sport, skating became really simple,” Cho said. “When I went out there, it was just the simplicity of me loving what I love to do. I lost sight of that in the past.”

His Bio from the NBCOlympics.com
Simon Cho is making his Olympic debut in Vancouver, skating in the 500m. The youngest member of the U.S. team at age 18, Cho earned his spot by winning a 500m race at U.S. Olympic trials. The win came when a fortuitous collision between leaders Apolo Ohno and J.R. Celski allowed Cho to cross the line first. Cho had not expected to make the team heading into trials and was planning to quit the sport after the meet. “It was such a huge surprise,” he said. “My mind wouldn’t wrap around it.”

Sticking with it
Cho wanted to quit skating in January 2009, unhappy with his results from that season, calling it “a complete failure.” Cho said he was overtrained, and exhausted mentally and physically. But after talking to friends and family, he decided to continue training through Olympic trials, but with the knowledge that he had to tone down his training. “I’ve learned to take steps to prevent doing that again,” he said. “Just listening to my body more and not ignoring the signs that it’s giving me.” He now plans to continue skating even after Vancouver.

Keeping pace
Just two seasons ago, Cho was serving as the “training rabbit” for the women’s team. His job was to pace the girls, going faster than they could but just enough so they could stay near him. “When I lead I don’t go 100 percent,” he said. “I kind of have to gauge myself so that I would go fast enough so that the girls could barely keep up but not slow enough that they weren’t working hard.” Though not a glamorous job, it was Cho’s way of getting to train with the national team. After one season of that, Cho qualified for his first World Cup team in 2006-07, and no longer had to be the rabbit. “Occasionally I still lead for the girls,” he said. “I think it’s good for me and the girls.”

On the move
Cho was born in Seoul, South Korea, where he first started skating at age 3. His father, Jay, noticed that his son had a lot of energy and thought skating would be a good way to release it. The family moved to Chicago when Cho was 5, and he stuck with the sport, skating at several local clubs before moving to Maryland in 2000. National team coach Jimmy Jang joined Cho’s Maryland club as a coach in 2001, and Jang still coaches Cho, now in Salt Lake City. Cho moved to Salt Lake in 2007, and after a few years on his own, Cho’s family recently moved there as well. Now in his junior year of high school, he is taking time off to train and compete in Vancouver, with plans to continue next year.

Family ties
Most of Cho’s family still lives in Korea, where he travels frequently for competitions and training but has never returend with his family for vacation. Every year there is a World Cup stop in South Korea, and he has spent summers there training as well. Cho speaks Korean at home, though he says he’s more comfortable with English.

Chan Ho Park is now in Yankee’s spring training but he actually wanted to remain a Philadelphia Phillie.  He made interesting comments on his first day in Yankee’s camp.

Admit it. You cried while watching Kim Yu Na skate and we all cried when we saw Kim Yu Na let her emotions go soon as she finished. It was the first time we saw the raw emotions of a 19 year old girl and it was just as beautiful as her performance. Queen Yu Na became a king at the Winter Olympics as she shrugged off the pressure and threw down an incredible performance to win the gold medal in ladies’ figure skating. One of the TV commentators said it best when she said that was one of the greatest performances in Olympic history.

Kim Yu Na destroyed the old record with a world record score of 228.56 and won the gold medal.  Her final overall score, 228.56, was about 10 points better than what Jeremy Abbott, the two-time U.S. national champion, managed here — and would have put her ninth in the men’s Olympic competition.  The men are allowed to do one more jump in their free skates than the ladies — which makes what Kim Yu Na did all the more impressive.

“I still can’t believe the score that I received,” Kim said. “I’m really surprised. It’s almost as close as the men’s score.” “I have accomplished the biggest, most important goal in my life,” she said. “I am going to enjoy this moment for a while.”

Ladies’ figure skating is the crown event and all eyes were on the reigning world champion but pressure and history were against her as the previous three ladies’ figure skating favorites had failed to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics.  Kim Yu Na is special for shrugging that all off of her and just competing like the athlete she really is.  Kim Yu Na was the perfect person to win a gold medal for South Korea.  It’s a country that could be considered chauvinistic with a workforce dominated by men, but it was a female teenager on Thursday night that took South Korea on her shoulders and brought pride to a proud nation.  Of course Korea took pride in their gold medals in speed skating and other sports, but this gold medal lifted a nation.  The last glorious sporting win that captivated South Korea was the World Cup in 2002, and they didn’t even win the world cup.  They reached the semi-finals and took pride in their greatest World Cup performance.  Since then, South Korea has come up short in sports like the World Baseball Classic.  Even this week, there was the disheartening disqualification of the short track speed skating team in the 3,000 meter relay race.  They lost the gold medal after having dominated the event for the last four Olympics.  But this is special…. really special.  A young lady put South Korea on her shoulders and she made them proud.  She is now King Kim Yu Na!  Bravo Yu Na! Bravo!

Check out her gold medal winning performance (video) at NBCOlympics.com.  Also, check out the analysis of Kim Yu Na’s score by the New York Times.

It happened again at the Winter Olympics, but this time Apolo Ohno wasn’t involved in the controversy like he was 8 years ago in Salt Lake City. The South Korean woman’s speed skating team thought they had won the 3,000-meter short-track relay, which would have earned South Korea a record fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the event. They were so elated that they skated around the rink with the Korean flag waving. However, things became pretty ominous as the judges were watching replays of a critical interaction with a Korean skater and a Chinese skater.  After deliberations, the South Korean team was disqualified for apparently impeding the Chinese skater, and all of the teams behind the Koreans were moved up one spot, including the U.S. team which ended up with the surprise bronze medal.  Officials later said they were disqualified for clicking skates with China just after an exchange with five laps to go. Kim was in the lead when her left skate blade hit the right blade of China’s Sun Linlin. The Chinese team jumped for joy as they stood next to the Korean coach who was being told by the judges of their ruling. Drats! Another disqualification and controversy at the Olympics for the Korean speed skating team.

“I don’t know what the reason is,” said team member Kim Min-Jung. “I don’t have any clue what the referee was saying. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Kim Yu Na kicked ass during the first night of ladies’ figure skating competition at the Winter Olympics.  She skated a near perfect performance and outdazzled her competition by setting the all time record for short program scores with a 78.50.  This bested her closest competitor and biggest rival, Mao Asado, by nearly 5 points.  She came prepared and was a competitor because she had to perform right after a magnificent performance by Mao Asado.  It was appropriate that she came out swinging with a performance to the James Bond theme song.  She skated with grace, power and beauty.  Kim Yu Na is skating her heart out and competing with the grit of Michael Jordan.  She has the weight of South Korea on her shoulders and also the knowledge that the previous 3 favorites entering the Winter Olympics failed to win the gold medal in ladies’ figure skating.  A lot of guys could learn from her competitiveness and focus.  She simply kicked major ice skating ass!

We’re not talking about ladies’ ice skating but ice skating around a circle. Korean’s have been known for winning in short track speed skating, but now they’ve migrated towards the long track which has long been dominated by the Dutch and Nordic countries. Today was a stunning gold medal win by Lee Seung-Hoon in the 10,000 meter race because the very heavy favorite Sven Kramer was disqualified because of an illegal lane change.   He had the best time but he was disqualified because of a gaffe by his coach, who instructed him to change lanes wrongly. Sven was disqualified for the illegal lane change and he was so upset that he thew down his glasses and couldn’t talk to his coach.

Lee Seung-Hoon, who took silver behind Kramer in the men’s 5,000 meters, slashed more than 22 seconds off his personal best to win in 12 minutes 58.55 seconds. Originally, he finished more than four seconds behind Kramer. Sven was clearly the best even though he made that mistake, but it’s rather unfortunate that Sven lost because of a brain fart by his coach. It may not be the best way to win, but Lee Seung-Hoon isn’t complaining. However, it’s been a glorious Winter Olympics for the South Korean speed skating team because they’ve won more medals at these games than previously. Why do Koreans excel in individual sports like archery and speed skating?   Wait, there are some team sports that Koreans excel in and that’s Ladies’ handball.  Now don’t get me started.

For the review and replay of the disqualification, go to NBCOlympics.com.

You just never know in short track speed skating until everyone’s crossed the finish line or if they even cross the finish line.  In one of the most thrilling finishes in my narrow understanding of short track speed skating, the finals of the 1500M short track race was set up for a South Korean sweep as three skaters from South Korea were bunched together  making the final turn towards the finish line.  Meters behind them was Apolo Ohno and J.R. Celski as there was a significant gap between the Korean bunch and the Americans.  However, a mishap by one of the Korean skaters undercut his countryman and both slipped coming out of the last turn.  Was it simply bad luck or bad skating tactics?  I certainly can’t say because I never lace the skates up but the devastatingly surprise ending for the two Korean kids opened a door for Apolo Ohno and J.R. Celski to cruise into 2nd and 3rd place.  Lee Jung Su of South Korea did end up winning the gold medal but I’m sure the South Korean contingency had quite a volatile evening in their recap of what happened.  Adding salt to the wound is the fact that Apolo Ohno ended up winning the silver medal and we all know that he has an adversarial history with South Korea in short track speed skating.  It’s never been truer in in any sport than in short track speed skating that it’s “never over till it’s over.”  How about them Olympics!

Go to NBCOlympics.com to watch the stunning finish.

Everywhere I look, there’s a lot of articles about woman’s figure skating champion Kim Yu Na from her chances to winning the gold medal to being the top-earning athlete entering Vancouver.  With the Winter Olympics about to start this week, she’s headlining so many articles because she’s intriguing on many fronts. Woman’s ice skating is traditionally the crown event at the winter Olympics and also because she comes into this event with so much pressure.   She enters the Olympics with the weight of South Korea on her shoulders to win the country’s first ever gold medal in Olympic figure skating.  Further heightening the pressure from South Korea is the fact that her #1 competitor is from Japan, Mao Asada, and we know about the very heated rivalry between these two countries.  Unfortunately, Olympic figure skating has not been to kind to reigning world champions who enter the Olympic games.  Brian Orser and Michelle Kwan are the faces of failed Olympic bids for the gold medal as both were very heralded reigning world champs.  Coincidentally, Brian Orser is the coach for Kim Yu Na and it’s his first time coaching anybody.  The New York Times released their second video about Kim Yu Na this week and it describes her relationship with Brian Orser and how she’s been transformed by him from a tactician to an elegant skating beauty.   Kim Yu Na was this very raw talent when Brian Orser decided to coach her 4 years ago.  She was typical of Korean athletes back then: win by practice and repetition.  However, Brian released her creative side and let her express herself.  What Brian wants is the judges and the crowds to cry for Kim Yu Na’s performance.  So it begs the question, will we cry because she fails to win the gold medal or cry because her performance was so breathtaking?

For the full video on Kim Yu Na and her coach Brian Orser, go to the New York Times.

Hold the presses but the New York Times did a feature on Kim Yu Na, the top ranked women’s figure skater entering the Winter Olympics, and they didn’t write anything dumb like how Koreans like tall people with eyelid surgery and thin calves.  Nice!  With the Winter Olympics fast approaching, the New York Times is doing short video pieces on  athletes and they’re trying to understand the nuances of their respective sport.  Kim Yu Na and her coach Brian Orser are featured in the “Inside the Action” video this week as they discuss the execution of the very difficult triple lutz-triple toe loop.  The New York Times doesn’t allow embeds so you’ll have to go to their website to check out the 2 minute video.

In the 2010 PGA golf season, keep an eye out for Kevin Na.  He finished 15th in Fed Ex Cup standings last year and is already off to a hot start, making the cut at the Sony Open and finishing in 8th place at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic (a nice payday of $150,000).  For those of you who don’t know who Kevin is, he is a South Korean born golfer whose family moved from South Korea to the United States when he was 8 years old.  He was one of the top junior golfers in the country and was so talented that he ended up skipping his senior year of high school and turned pro in 2001.  Since then, Kevin has had much success on the PGA tour proving he can play with the best and finish at the top.   You can follow him on Twitter at @thekevinna or his facebook fan page.

Check out Kevin in this interview video