Apolo on Long Track
The US national short track team now trains at the Utah Olympic oval, and I have never bugged Apolo Ohno, or even turned my camera in his direction (well, once I briefly did, it’s in my “king of pain” video from the fall world cup qualifier).
I figure that Apolo has everyone & their brother wanting to say hello 24/7, so I leave him be; and simply watch that whole short track team train outrageously hard (really, they do very intense high volume “Korean training”! it hurts to watch their brutal dryland workouts.)
But with the world cup starting a week from today, the hockey rink has been dismantled so Dutch TV cameras have a clear field of view; & so the whole short track team was out skating the big ice!!
Apolo on the long track?!?!? Welcome to my world! and I will take pictures of that!!
He was obviously having an absolute blast too.
Here is Apolo & Kip Carpenter, chilling & chatting:
I asked Kip if he knew Apolo from his own years of short track, Kip said:
Know him? I used to drive him to high school in the morning! I trained with Apolo 96-97-98. We were just kids then. Now we are “old guys”, and it’s been several years since we really have seen each other. It was nice to catch up.
I did give Kip some good-natured crap about the “old guys” comment, but they were teenagers then, and there is a world of difference between that and your late 20’s
Here is Chad Hedrick leading a whole pack of short trackers at speed.
They looked more comfortable in the turns than the straights, but that is to be expected.
These are members of the women’s team, also having a great time. I think they had just stepped on the ice a few moments before I took this, and these very talented athletes are experiencing a giant “whoa!!”
Clear your imagination for a moment, and picture this as the last lap of a long track 1500m
of course Apolo, or any of the short track national team members, could probably skate very fast at any of the middle distances, but why would he do that? It’s a nice fantasy to think about though.
In addition to Apolo, the Dutch, Russian, Norwegian, Finnish, and other national teams were all on the ice preparing for the world cup. Here are two dutch skaters from the DSB pro team (translation for Americans, DSB=The New England Patriots), hips right on their push and making huge turn pressure.
This is Norwegian distance specialist Oystein Grodum, This is one BIG DUDE. He is at least 6’6”, people immediately notice his odd looking arm swing, as it barely moves from what you see here, just a little directly forward & back. But if you have problems with your arm swing pulling your hips out of line (I do), adopting elements of this actually works really well.
Ivan Skobrev leads a train of Russians past US national team skater Ron Macky. Members of the Dutch TVM pro team sit in the background and watch closely. (Translation for Americans, TVM=Indianapolis Colts)
I think this is TVM skater Jan Smeekens, saying, I’m going that way! And he was, quite quickly.
And this is my buddy Brian Boudreau, an American master chasing some crazy fast Norwegians; they are ripping out several 25 second laps in a row here… that is over half a mile at an average speed of 36mph! absolutely scary fast!
Brian has also recently caught the blogging bug, you can see his writing over at Flyin Brian, I sent him some images I took from today, and he has his own interesting take on this morning’s very busy session on the long track.
Filed under: from home
you happen to catch what kind of boots Apolo was wearing?
he was skating on a newer looking pair of Marcheses, if you look at this page of the Dimon Sports website, you can see a picture of a 15 year old Apollo racing against Paul Marchese in a Lake Placid long track packtstyle race.
I was actually surprised the first time I saw Apollo skate short track–my first pack style (long track, of course) Nationals was in ‘96, at Milwaukee, and Apollo was there–I think he was a midget or some such young’un, and I believe he won his class… I just figured he was a long track skater…
Hmmmm…I was 33 at the time, Apollo was 12 or so, he is an “old guy” now…what the heck does that make me?!
It is Jan Smeekens on the picture with the TVM skin suit…TVM’s Carl has red/black skates. About pro-teams/NFL teams comparisons, I would say that TVM are the PAT’s, having the best in sprint/midle: Wennermars, in the long: Kramer and in the ladies: Wurst. Though I would be curious to know who has more wins between DSB and TVM all time?
(note from Andrew: thanks!!! change made! and from what some DSB-ers told me today, there is some SERIOUS rivalry between TVM & DSB)
Thanks for shareing! Looks like it was a fun day. I am stoked for the world cups here!
I was wondering what Apolo had been doing these days.
It’s nice to see him back on the ice. And having fun with it.
Thanks Andrew!
Andrew,
I’ve posted a photo of you on my website and wrote a small story to it about Ohno on the longtrack.
Great pictures!
greetings
One more thing Andrew. The girls picture is not the US Short track team. That is the ladies of the WhIP program.
It has been pretty nice to see so many good skaters. About the NFL comparison I would suggest this to be more of a 1972 dolphins and 1985 bears playing on the same field at the same time. Sure the colts and the pats are VERY good, but it is still out there to see if they are THAT good.
Another observation. It seems to me that Kemkers (TVM coach and former US speedskating coach) is able to clone champions. There are more than 4 world champs in that group and some of the less well known sure look capable of getting some medals any time.
Clone…ahem…dope to super champion form. Only technique mathers now…
Apolo skating on the long track…
Speed skating blogger extraordinaire Andrew Love has some great new photos of Apolo training on the LT at the Kearns Oval! The short track ice there was dismantled ahead of the LT World Cup being held in Kearns next weekend…….
ITS ABOUT TIME APOLO CAME OUT OF HIDING…HE LOOKS AMAZING AS ALWAYS..
Andrew, I had question about your first group shot with Chad in it.
The short tracker behind him, is that Anthony Lobello?
I was just wondering. Thanks!
that does look like Lobello, I was paired with him twice at LT nationals last year in the 500.. (he beat me both times by a whisker)
Lobello has been training out here, and skates a good chunk of long track as well… So yes, I’d bet that is him..
Okay, thanks! Just clarifying my guess because someone else on OZ thought it was Travis Jayner.
Now I know.
Us New York people remember when Apolo was 14 and in the program for ST at Lake Placid. He came out on the long track with short track skates and a long ankle length down coat. He did not want to be there. I am so glad he stuck it out and he turned out to be a great guy and a credit to the sport.
This is the blog that I saw on ohnozone.net that brought me here to your awesome site!
I agree, the one time I saw him in person I absolutely refused to go drool over him like everyone else. Instead I was amused, never had seen such celebrity craze, I’d grown up knowing many celebrities but hadn’t ever watched ppl swarm them like that. Yet for some reason that seemed to make me a weirdo, cause when I glanced around his dad standing a couple feet away was staring at me. I was just sitting on my fav bench of my rink minding my own business. Then when Apolo finally went to the locker room he stood there with his hand on the door staring at me….AWKWARD. Apparently observing, and just coming to watch national level skating in a sport I never heard of made me an oddball. I’m still offended that it felt like someone followed me out! I’ve never desired to obtain a piece of paper of ink from anyone, in fact someone gave me two Sarah Hughes autographs of which I stuck in a box somewhere. Honestly, given the opportunity I’d pick his brain about skating, and whether he agreed with my blade set-up…perhaps that makes me a nerd…lol
Didn’t change my mind though that day was when I decided to switch to speedskating from figure skating.
In the Netherlands no one would recognize Apollo Ohno. You go to shorttrack when youre not good enough for longtrack skating.