Silver for Ohno and new American record for Reutter

November 14, 2009—Marquette, MI
A great crowd at the Berry Events Center cheered on the U.S. ladies who started the third day of racing at the ISU World Cup for Short Track Speedskating. The Ladies 1500m semifinals was the first event of the day with three-time U.S. Champion Katherine Reutter (Champaign, IL) and Olympian Allison Baver (Sinking Spring, PA) representing the U.S.

Reutter took the lead in the race for the first laps before falling back. Quihong Liu (CHN) jumped into the lead and, with two laps to go, Reutter fell and was not able to advance to the A final. In the last heat of the semifinals, Baver started the race in sixth place and just couldn’t get past the competition. Chinese skater Yang Zhou won the Ladies 1500m A Final followed by Liu and Eun-Byul Lee (KOR). 

In the Men’s 1500m semifinals, Travis Jayner (Midland, MI) moved from the back of the pack into second place, but after a close second-place finish, Jayner was disqualified for impeding. In Apolo Anton Ohno’s race, the Seattle native stayed back in last place until the final laps where he worked his way up to finish in second place and move onto the A final along with Jung-Su Lee (KOR).

It was a very physical race in the Men’s 1500m A Final with skaters jostling for position during the 13-lap event. Ohno stayed in mid-pack of the seven skaters until, with five laps to go, he moved into third position behind Canada’s Charles Hamelin. He then passed Hamelin to move into second where he finished behind Jung-Su Lee for the silver medal.

“This is definitely our strongest U.S. team,” Ohno said. “It’s nice to see that we have some depth in our skaters.”

In the Ladies 500m heats, Reutter and Dudek both advanced to the quarterfinals with Reutter setting a new American record in the 500m with a time of 43.760. In the quarterfinals, Reutter put it all out to catch Seung-Hi Park and Meng Wang, finishing in second place to advance. In Dudek’s race, Eun-Byul Lee skated up from behind to steal the second place spot from Dudek right at the line, who did not advance. Moving into the Ladies 500m semifinals, Reutter put in a good race to finish first and advance to the A Final, but she finished just off the podium in fourth place with Wang winning the 500m with a fast time of 42.961.

Fast ice in the Men’s 500m heats helped Lobello skate a blistering race to finish first in his heat and move to the quarters. Apolo finished second in his heat, moving onto the quarterfinals. But in the 500m quarterfinals, both Lobello and Ohno were disqualified for impeding.

During the 500m heats, Francois-Louis Tremblay (CAN) set a new World Record with a time of 40.864 and then re-set the record again with 40.756 in the quarterfinals. Three heats later, Korean skater Si-Bak Sung broke the record again with a time of 40.751. In the 500m semifinal, Tremblay took back the record with 40.684. But Sung kept his name in the record books with a scorching time of 40.651. 

Racing concludes tomorrow with the Men’s and Ladies’ 1000m and the Relay events. For complete results, visit www.usspeedskating.org and follow USS on Twitter @usspeedskating.