Enrique Cerna Interviews Olympic Speed Skater Apolo Anton Ohno

This is a transcript of an interview with Apolo Anton Ohno on Conversations at KCTS 9 which aired on July 18, 2008.

EC: Apolo Ohno, Welcome.

AAO: Thank you.

EC: So tell me what it was like in that first Olympics in Salt Lake City? Opening ceremonies, and you’re part of the U.S. team, coming into the stadium. What does that feel like?

AAO: Well that games was special, really special. Obviously it was my first time experiencing the Olympics. It was my first Olympic team. I was really young, I was about 19-years-old at the time. And it was on home soil. It was in the U.S. It was post 9/11. I think the country was yearning for something that we could all gather together for and participate in, whether through sports or however it was. I felt like a dual obligation to represent my country the best I could. Walking into the stadium and hearing those thousands of people screaming, it was an amazing feeling. It’s very hard to describe because of the energy in the air and all the flashes that go off. And it’s unlike any other sporting event I’ve been to. It’s unlike the Super Bowl, it’s not like a world title bout, it’s just, it’s something different. You have so many different countries in one place at the same time.

EC: Is there a sense of feeling too, because you’re representing your country, does it make it more intense?

AAO: It makes it more intense, you try not to say or think that you have that on your shoulders per say, because you want to compete just for yourself and obviously for your country, but its real and its there, yeah.

EC: Were you scared at all?

AAO: I don’t think I was scared, being 19, I was still kind of feeling pretty fearless, but, it’s more of a, you feel a sense of respect and you want to uphold that respect. You want to uphold that honor. And say, I am competing for the U.S. Olympic team. I am one of the best that the U.S. is sending to go compete with the best of the best, and on this day hopefully I can stand on top of that podium and represent my country well, win lose or draw.

EC: Let’s talk about your journey into the Olympics when you first started in this area of sports as a short track racer. How did that begin?

AAO: Well, it first began just with my father and I watching on TV the Winter Olympic Games. When I was first introduced to this sport, I thought, wow this is something really cool. I have never seen a sport like this, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I first started doing it for fun, I didn’t think the Olympic Games. And over time, I started to develop this talent, and I started to realize, you know what, I have something different here than some of the other kids who are out here skating. From there, it just kind of progressed and progressed. Obviously there were some speed bumps along the way, but that’s when I realized, I have something a little bit different than the other kids out here.

EC: How old were you?

AAO: I was about 12-years-old.

EC: So you saw it first on television?

AAO: Literally I saw it on TV, and I said I want to try that, tried it, started to really become actively involved, to head back up to Vancouver, B.C., to learn how to skate by some of the Canadians, watch them and mimic them, apply what I learned back on the ice, was scouted by some coaches on the East Coast, who said we think this kid has got some potential. 15 was the lowest age limit that you had to be to be able to part of the junior development program, and I was 14 at the time. But the coach felt so strongly about bringing me in early, they made an exception. They told my father, you know what? We think your kid has something special. We think he could be one of the best to ever put skates on. And he brought me in.

EC: But, as I understand at that age, you were being a rebellious teenager, you were causing problems at home with your father, who has raised you by himself, butting heads, and at this time, when he wanted you to go to Lake Placid for that program, you didn’t catch the plane on the day you were supposed to go there.

AAO: I don’t know if catching the plane is the right phrase. More like somebody threw me the ball and I dodged it, went the other way. I didn’t even try to catch it.

EC: Why?

AAO: I was about 14-years-old at the time. My summers consisted of hanging out with my friends, going to barbeques, going to parties. I was hanging out with a much older group of people, than a normal 14-year-old would hang out with.

EC: The wrong crowd?

AAO: I think definitely the wrong crowd. Some of them are still my friends today, but, they were not going on the same path that I think my life that someone had set forth in front of me. My dad and I, I told my dad I don’t want to go to New York, I don’t want to go train there. Its on the other side of the country, I want to stay here, I want to grow up here, I want to be with my friends. It was a little scary for me to go across the United States and hang out with people I don’t even know. Nobody was from the West Coast, everyone was Midwest or East Coast. So it was different; different lifestyle, different kids, different environment. And didn’t know what I was getting myself into, I didn’t know anything about the training. All I knew was that I would not be able to hang out with my friends here, I wasn’t going to enjoy myself, and I didn’t have the passion for skating yet, that I do now. So my dad basically said, look you’re going to go, because you have this opportunity and they are giving you this opportunity to go to an Olympic training center in upstate New York and you can train with a good coach, with kids who have talent just like you, and he dropped me off the airport and said, okay good luck, and I said, okay dad, see ya later, good luck. I walked right over to the payphone, pick up the payphone and said hey, I called my friend, hey, I’m at the airport, can you come get me? Literally 15-20 minutes later, I was back on the road. My dad thought I was still actually in New York, and I think for the next one or two weeks, he hadn’t really heard from me. The first week he hadn’t heard from me, and he was like this is kind of funny. I think he got a call from the coach in New York saying, “Mr. Ohno, we’re just wondering when you’re going to send Apollo out here and if you guys were still going to accept the invitation”. And my dad is like, what are you talking about? He’s been out there for a week already. How’s he doing? So, the coach is like, he never got on the plane, and it looks like he never boarded the plane. so my dad found out that obviously I wasn’t in New York, found out who’s house I was staying at, and then we spent the next couple weeks butting heads more and more and more. It wasn’t pretty, I was so defiant as a person and my character, I have a very strong character. And when I was younger, I thought I was always right, I’m always right the other guy is wrong, especially when it came to my dad. He would say red, I would say blue. Just because he was right, I would say he wasn’t right. I think a lot of kids are like that.

EC: Yes I have a son.

AAO: Finally, my dad says, okay Apollo, you’re going to go. And of course I say, no no no, I don’t want to go, I don’t want any part of this. So he drives me to the airport again, and instead of saying good luck, he goes through security with me, gets on the plane with me, we both fly there, we both get off the airplane, and we both drive to this area in New York. He sees the coach and says, “Well, here’s Apollo, good luck”. Almost as if saying, I give you two weeks buddy before this kid is nowhere to be found. At the time, the coach was like, whoa, good luck? He didn’t know how to take that, my dad’s expression.

EC: What am I getting into here?

AAO: What am I getting into here you know, what did I do here? I actually took me about a month to really warm up to the coach. And I sort of just settled in and started to like what I was doing out there. Was being taught discipline, was being taught sacrifice for my sport, the training. It was an interesting time in my life, at such a young age too, its kind of interesting how I look back and I say I went through quite a bit at the age of 14, 15, years old.

EC: 15, and you are the #1 in the country in short track skating. But you go to the 1998 Olympic trials and come in last.

AAO: You know the first year I was training in New York, at the end of the season, which was about 6-7 months later, I tried out for the Senior World team, so the actual World team, and I won. I beat everybody, I beat all the guys who were older than me, I beat the veterans, I beat all the guys who were on the team, more than 15 years. And I was on 14 years old. Following that season, I didn’t know that I was supposed to train, I didn’t know I was supposed to stay fit, I was probably still going through puberty at the time so my hormones are going crazy. I was eating like a horse. I arrived back into the training regiment about 4-5 months later, after winning the trials. Being overweight, which I didn’t even know there was such a thing of being overweight at the age. Being in sports, being heavy, being kind of my focus wasn’t really there.

EC: I heard they called you chunky?

AAO: They did call me chunky. But it was from a previous thing. I sure lived it up at the time and I definitely filled out my skin suit. But, needless to say, that season, more importantly my heart and my desire wasn’t there. Physically, even though being heavy, even though I didn’t have the training, I still had the tools, I had this gift and this talent. But it was in here, and in here (points to head and heart), that was really missing, the piece of the puzzle. About 2 weeks before the Olympic trials, I already knew in my heart, I was like, you know I’m not even going to make the team. I almost admitted defeat. And I went from being first place to last place in trials in less than a year. It was then that I had to realize, why am I doing this. Why did I just waste that year, why did I just waste the season. There are millions of kids out there who would do anything to have the chance to be the best at a sport or to participate in an Olympic games for the country, and I was kind of throwing it away.

EC: I understand not far away from this time, your father says you need to figure it out. So your father takes you to Iron Springs, a place were you two used to go to quite a bit.

AAO: Very remote area, by the pacific ocean, and he said, you know what Apollo, you need to spend some along time here, with yourself, asking yourself, these important questions. What do you want to do with this sport? Is this something you truly want to dedicate yourself towards? If you not, then you have to say I’m done, I’m going to move on, do something else. But if you are going to say, you know what, I do like this sport, and I am going to dedicate myself, there can’t be a second guess. There can’t be a second question. There has to be total dedication. And I think he’s lived his life that way. My father is Japanese, I think traditionally, Asians in general believe in 100% dedication to a sole object or sole purpose. He believed in that heavily, he tried to instill those principles in me. And it didn’t occur until basically my 8th day training there at the iron spring resort.

EC: And you were by yourself. How old were you?

AAO: Left me there, there’s no TV, there’s actually no phone in each room. There’s a pay phone down the street so you have to walk to the pay phone. It’s just you, the cabin, and the ocean.

EC: And it’s January, windy and cold.

AAO: It’s January so it’s rained every single day. It was windy, it was cold, I was miserable for the first 5-6 days there. Because I was still training, kind of mindlessly training, trying to stay in shape, not really knowing if I was going to keep competing or not. I remember I only brought one pair of running shoes, and these running shoes were beat up anyway. There was no cushioning, they were hard, I was getting blisters. I was always soaking wet when I came back from these runs. This one run, the turning point was I think on the 8th day, where I went on this long run, it was supposed to a 1-2 hour run. I didn’t have any iPod, back then I didn’t have any music, you just listen to yourself breath, and you listen to the sounds of being outside in the wilderness almost. This place was, somebody had told me that this area is where they send witness protection people. So like, there’s nothing there, there’s really nothing there, that’s the beauty of it too, it’s so remote. But being 15, it’s really hard for me to appreciate that, I want to go play video games or something. And I’m running, its pouring down rain, I was tired, I was still out of shape, I was overweight, I was uncomfortable, didn’t want to be there, I was alone, I’ve been asking myself all these questions every day. I just got to the point where I was just like ahhh. I stopped running and on the side of the road, I just remembered there was this landmark, some kind of rock or boulder, I basically sat on it, and started asking myself questions. Why am I running? Why. Why am I here, and what choices do I have in my life that are set before me. Is this something that I should really pursue? And I prayed, if this supposed to be my path, please give me the strength to keep running, please give me the mental strength to do what I need to do. It was then that I realized the fork in the road went two ways. It basically said, if I was going to keep skating, I was going to keep running up that road. I didn’t know where it led to, or I was going to turn around, and go back to the cabin. Then I got up, still raining, its cold it was dark, and I kept running. I finished up that running session, I came back to the cabin, ran right to the payphone, called my dad and said, dad I think I’m ready, I made a decision, I know what I want to do. And he said what do you want, what do you want to do. I said I want to skate, I want to try out again for the world team. And about 2 months later, I tried out for the world team, and I made the last spot. The last spot, number 6 I was. If I had not made that team, I probably would not be skating today. But I barely made that spot, and here we are today. (Laughs)

EC: Your father, lets face it, he’s played a tremendous role in your life. Struggling with you, challenging you, probably feeling frustrating more than few times. He and your mom divorced when you were young, and he raised you by himself. Sounds to me like you’ve been very fortunate to have a father that spent so much of his time taking you to competitions and all these things.

AAO: You know, that’s kind of the strength of our friendship of our team, of our family, that we may still fight, we may still get into arguments, but that’s because we can with each other. That’s because we have that understanding…

AAO: A lot of parents tell their son or daughter, you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it, and he truly believed that with me. He thought that anything that I could do is possible. Whatever I wanted to be, whatever avenue, different type of business, sports, friendships, relationships, whatever I wanted to do, if you want it bad enough, and you put everything you have towards it, its possible. Anything is possible in this world.

EC: Let’s talk about being an Olympic athlete and what it takes. As we speak, the 2010 games in Vancouver are really just around the corner. You’re going to go for it?

AAO: Absolutely.

EC: But I talked to around 2006, at the time you weren’t sure. But now you know you’re going to go for it. Not long ago, you won the world championships. So what’s life like right now?

AAO: Since the 2006 Olympic Games, it was a whirlwind. I did a post-media tour, I took some time off to really kind of go inside and say, again, ask myself the same questions from the cabin; is this something I do want to keep pursuing, and if not, I need to move on. Came to the realization that this is something I have passion for in my life. The Olympic spirit, the Olympian-ism is in my blood. And I’m still gifted enough, still talented enough, I’m young enough to be able to keep pushing and keep pursuing, and lead a new generation of younger short track speed skaters, to the Olympic games in Vancouver, B.C. and hopefully be successful.

EC: Okay so we have to talk about Dancing with the Stars. Where were you more scared? As you were on the starting line ready to go in that first Olympic competition, or as you are preparing to go out and do that first dance on Dancing with the Stars?

AAO: There’s a little bit of fear I guess, before my Olympic events, which is natural, I almost anticipate it. With the show, I wasn’t competing for an Olympic gold medal, but man I was nervous. I mean almost before every single dance, I felt like I forgot the whole thing. I felt like I didn’t know what we dancing, I didn’t know the steps or anything.

EC: So on the ice, you have control.

AAO: I have control, I know what I’m doing, I know what I’m there for, this is like muscle memory. When I’m out there dancing, I’m doing these weird little arm movements, I’m doing stuff I’ve never done before. I’m in this weird outfit that fits ridiculously tight and it’s not a skin suit. I don’t know, it was an experience that was for sure.

EC: Good experience?

AAO: One of the best experiences of my life.

EC: You know you won it, so obviously...

AAO: Whether I won, I said to myself, I just want to make it to the finals. I want to go there, I want to make it to the finals, and say, I can dance in front of all these millions of people. When I first started the show, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I didn’t know how hard it was, I didn’t know the hours involved, I didn’t know how engaged I’d be interactively, with the actual show. And it almost 3 months of my life, solely dedicated towards this show. It was intense, really intense.

EC: But your athletic background, I would think that would have to help. Because you have to train hard, but it’s comparable, that same type of commitment to make.

AAO: Train very hard, but the physical aspect isn’t as important as performing on a stage. Physically I wasn’t very tired, but mentally I was. Being on the show, and performing every night before millions of people, putting on basically a show, I have a whole new respect for ballroom dancers, and I think performers who perform on a stage or in front of a camera now. Because, it’s just as exhausting, it really is.

EC: It seems like in the last 10 to 12 years, you’ve lived several lifetimes from becoming this Olympic skater, and being out in public and dancing in Dancing with the Stars, and now getting ready to being in the Olympics. Where’s the future road headed here?

AAO: Well, I am going to be 26 soon, pushing for my next Olympic games, and following the games, there’s an avenue of possibilities out there. I feel like I have lived several lifetimes which is unbelievable. I’ve done many things many kids my age have not been able to do, and looking forward, there are a lot of new goals outside of sports that I’d like to accomplish. Both on a community level and on a national level. In all aspects whatever business venture I decide to go into, whatever form of entertainment I’d like to go into, these somehow have become open to me because of my success in the Olympic Games. Because of that funny dancing show, and it’s really interesting to me how life works. Sometimes you give your all and nothing becomes of it. Sometimes you give it your all and maybe a door opens. And I think that’s the mystery of life, to keep carrying the struggle forward, no matter what that struggle is.

EC: You’re away from home a lot. But you come back as we are having this conversation with you. Seattle, will it always be home?

AAO: It’s always going to be home. And I hope someday I’ll be able to come back and settle. I won’t be traveling around so much. But it’s always going to be home, it’s always going to be the place where I say I’m from, that I represent, that I love dearly. It’s always and always be the most beautiful to live in my heart. I love the people here, I love everything about it, even sometimes the traffic.

EC: And occasionally the rain too.

AAO: And occasionally the rain.

EC: Apollo Ono, thank you very much for your time, good luck in 2010, and if you ever dance again, good luck in that as well.

AAO: Thank you. (Laughs)

EC: Alright, thank you.

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