Apolo Ohno grew up in Seattle, Washington and at a young age became involved in sports. He started out swimming competitively but then discovered his true passion was in speed skating. It didn’t take Apolo long to succeed shortly after entering into competitive speed skating in 1997 he won the U.S. short-track championship. Unfortunately this success was short-lived because of his less than stellar performance at the 1988 Olympic trials. At this time in his life, he was only 15 years olds still very young and he had to determine that if being a speed skater was what he really wanted to do. It was a major decision to make and not one he could take lightly as in order to become a part of the Olympics he would have to train and work harder than he had ever done. After a week away from all the hustle and bustle, he decided that speed skating was what he wanted and he was ready to commit 100%, to go above and beyond in order to excel.
That was all it took and Apolo’s career in speed skating quickly blossomed. Quickly there after in 1999, Apolo won the Junior World Championships and then in 2000-2001 was the overall winner of the World Cup. This led him to make the 2002 Olympic team where he took home a silver and gold metal during the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. In only a few short years Apolo accomplished so much in his speed skating career.
This was truly only the beginning of his competitive speed skating career and he went on to win overall champion at the World Cup from 2002-2005. Then at the 2005 World Championships he won two gold medals at both the 1,000-meter and 3,000 meter competitions. Finally in 2006 the Olympics came around again and he was able to go home with one gold medal and two bronze medals.
It’s prevalent that Apolo meant what he decided at only 15 years old, he was ready to commit himself body, mind, and spirit to speed skating. He dedicated years of his life to training as hard as he possibly could, which led him to all this success in his speed skating career. He did not give up when his training took over his life he instead embraced it allowing it to motivate and push him further and ended up with several gold medals in the end.
Apolo Ohno - Allysian Sciences 