Guess that’s why this event is also called, “NASCAR on ice”…

South Korean Lee “Chim Chim” Jung-su won the gold, while Apolo Ohno, a.k.a., ‘Speed Racer', and J.R. Celski, a.k.a., ‘Racer X’, took the silver and bronze respectively.

I watched the 1,500-meter short-track speed skating event, and maybe I had a little too much Daytona 500 on the brain or something, but I couldn’t help thinking I was watching an old Speed Racer episode in the instant when those two South Korean skaters collided and careened into the wall. Images of countless Speed Racer episodes where so many of Speed’s adversaries met similar fates immediately came to mind. Anyway, I actually found myself laughing out loud at the spectacle of those two guys wiping out.

That crash was so perfect in it’s timing and absolutely beautiful in its synchronicity, that it looked almost choreographed. It was also a little ironic that the two ill-fated skaters hailed from the dog-eating nation of Korea, the same country that eight years ago had a skater disqualified for blocking, which resulted in Apolo Anton Ohno receiving the gold at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

In addition to the gold medal that year, Apolo Ohno also received a number of death threats from irate South Koreans who directed their wrath at both Ohno and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). They sent so many accusatory letters and e-mails protesting the race, that the volume of e-mails crashed the Olympic Committee’s e-mail server.

Crashing definitely seems to be a bit of theme here with these Korean skaters.