A golden sunset shines on Ohno in Turin

TURIN, Italy — When the Olympic flame flickered lowest for America, Apolo Ohno lit the burners.

They carried him to two medals, gold and bronze in one night, bringing his career total to five — tying speedskating god Eric Heiden for the most Winter Games medals by any American man.

But even sweeter than that accomplishment was its dark setting.

It happened on a day when the best American skier crashed and burned for the fifth time, and another was sent home for a drunken brawl. It happened at an Olympics where every sure-thing U.S. star sure didn't.

It happened on the start line in the 500-meter short-track final Saturday night at the Palavela — a mad-dash sprint around a hockey rink where Olympic history is made in less than 43 seconds.

It's a race where the start is critical. Ohno, in the favored inside lane, blew off the line as if fired from a crossbow. He appeared, on review, to be moving before the gun ever fired. But for once in the storied Olympic career of Ohno, no foul was called.

Flame on.

Ohno, a dark-blue blur in a yellow helmet, thick legs churning, led at the first corner. He led at the second corner, and the third, and by the fourth had opened up some daylight — almost unheard of in a 4-½-lap race — between himself and Canada's Francois-Louis Tremblay and Eric Bedard, who scrambled, like greyhounds after the mechanical rabbit, just to stay in the game.

"I was just waiting for him to make even just one mistake — a little one," said Tremblay, the eventual silver medalist.

He is still waiting.

It was the first time Ohno, awarded a gold in Salt Lake City when a Korean skater was disqualified, had crossed the finish line first in an Olympic final.

"I couldn't believe it," he said.

An hour later, he still couldn't describe the feeling.

"Just emotion. So much emotion and passion. Everything was running through my body."

The 500 is not his strongest race, which made the gold medal that much sweeter.

"On this night, on this occasion, on this Olympic day, I was able to come through," Ohno said. "For me, it was the perfect race."

And the perfect comeback.

Ohno's Olympics began with a collapse in his specialty, the 1,500 meters. He climbed back to his feet to grab a bronze medal in the 1,000 meters — a major accomplishment, in his mind.

Yet he entered Saturday night's races a distinct underdog, to South Korea's Ahn Hyun-Soo and Lee Ho-Suk, and perhaps to China's Jia Jun Li and the two Canadians.

South Korea's Lee was culled out by a fall in a quarterfinal heat. And China's Li came out on the losing end of a tangle with Ohno in the semifinal, where a confrontation between the two sent Ohno flailing, dropping him from second to fourth and threatening to end his night early.

But Ohno, who made a miraculous last-lap scramble to recover and finish third, was advanced to second — and the final — when Li was disqualified for a scrape with another skater. And there, he unleashed an inner speed reserve no one, at least in the un-soul-patched portion of the world — knew he had.

There was little time to celebrate his fourth Olympic medal. A half hour later, Ohno was called to the ice again, as part of the U.S. 5,000-meter relay team with Rusty Smith, Alex Izykowski and J.P. Kepka.

The race played out as expected, with Canada and China tussling for first and second, the U.S. and home-crowd favorite Italy battling for third.

With six laps remaining, an Italian skater overtook Ohno, who appeared to be sputtering, and headed home for the bronze. Pandemonium swept the Palavela, which was louder than it has ever been at these Games.

The Italians held the lead with two laps remaining, when Smith handed off to Ohno — who else? — to anchor the final laps.

Flame back on.

Ohno, who had raced three 500-meter heats already this night, then a dozen laps of the 45-lap relay, reached deep. His muscles, remembering all those early mornings in Colorado Springs, Colo., all that running, skating and lifting since age 14, all those years of sweat and boredom and hope since Salt Lake City in 2002, pushed him past the Italians with a lap and a half to go. He never looked back.

Ohno crossed the line third, behind South Korea and Canada, putting the U.S. back on the relay medal stand for the first time in 12 years — and making a strong statement about U.S. teamwork in an Olympics that have been begging for one.

"The reason the relay is so special is because it's four guys out there," Ohno said. "Four guys fighting."

Not fighting like Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis. Fighting to win.

"One guy can never win a relay, even two guys," Ohno continued. "It's got to be all four, with the same heart, the same passion to race. I saw all of our guys fight out there. These guys can say they're Olympic medalists for life. That's something very special."

Park the children in front of the tube and make them listen to this man, wiser than his 23 years. Make a tape of him standing on the medal stand in the Palavela, softly singing the words to the national anthem, and play it on a loop.

Post on every high-school locker room wall a picture of the relay medal ceremony, after which Ohno and his teammates shook hands and hugged — hugged — members of the supposedly arch-rival Korean team, then posed for a silly, multinational group photo, arms around one another's shoulders.

Wounds were closed here.

Each time Ohno celebrated a medal on the ice, the first man to congratulate him was Ahn, the remarkable, four-time Turin medalist from South Korea and clearly the fastest man in the world on the ice.

And afterward, Ahn, his teammates, and the entire Canadian team were given chance after chance to cry foul, to say Ohno jumped the start in the 500, to find a reason to cloud the relay result.

No takers.

"I should leave that to the referees," Ahn said.

It was a night for teamwork and friendship in an Olympics that have offered not enough of either. But mostly, it was a night for a Seattle skater turned national hero, who came to his second Olympics and not only lived up to the legend of his first, but exceeded it.

He didn't want to talk about his future, about the chance to become America's most-medaled male Winter Olympian, four years down the road and only 2-½ hours up it from Seattle.

"I don't know," he said. "I have to see what my next journey's going to be."

We might be lucky enough to see him take on the world again in Vancouver. We might not.

Either way, never — even when he is old and gray and finally off the Internet hotties list — will Ohno forget the night he skated to the start line in the 11th hour of a fading Olympics in northern Italy, burst from his stance and literally lit up the night.

"All my races in these Games have been very special," he said. "This whole experience for me has been very, very touching. This whole Olympic experience is amazing."

For him — and now, finally, for the rest of us.

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or rjudd@seattletimes.com