The following article appeared on Alan's site www.e-broadbandnews.com on February 13th. It is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

A few days ago at the Olympics,  Apolo Anton Ohno and three other skaters fell in a last-lap crash near the finish line of the 1000 meter short track speedskating race, and the Australian skater who was in fifth place waltzed across the finish line for a gold medal.

15,000 fans booed when the referee refused to re-run the race, and all 15,000 fans were wrong.    And I'm going to tell you why.

Today, I'm going to tell you all about short track speedskating, a subject which I happen to know a lot about.   All three of my daughters were in-line short track speedskaters for many years, as were Apolo Anton Ohno and Derek Parra before they converted to ice.  I never had the pleasure of meeting Apolo but I do know Derek -- more about that later.

Back to the race.  Collisions like the one we saw in the 1000 meter race are not at all unusual in short track speedskating.  The skaters are skating so fast, and it is so difficult to pass, that these kinds of accidents happen fairly often.    In fact, it's a testament to the skill of these athletes that such accidents don't happen more often.

Nine times out of ten, the collisions are not malicious -- they are just a byproduct of somebody attempting to make a pass and move up in the pack.

If the officials were to re-run the race every time a skater fell, it would take forever to complete an event.  So falls are just considered to be part of the sport -- a part that all skaters learn to accept.

(A sidebar:  You might think that the best way to avoid getting tripped up by another skater is to jump into the lead early and try to stay there. Such a strategy only works in very short races.  In a long race, you want to stay back and not lead the entire way, so that you can conserve energy by drafting off of other skaters.  Which means that knowing how and when to pass is a critical skill.)

My friend Dr. Scott Klieman, whose daughter was also a short track speedskater, puts it best.  "Speedskating," he says, "is a microcosm of life," meaning that speedskating, like life, is unfair.   In speedskating, as in life,  stuff happens (feel free to substitute the four letter unprintable word for "stuff")..   Sometimes good stuff happens, and sometimes bad stuff happens.   It all depends on your point of view -- or your place in the pack!   What happened the other night was bad for Ohno, but good for the Australian who won the gold medal.   My youngest daughter Mallory benefited similarly one year at the regional championships, winning an important race when the skaters in front of her fell on the last lap near the finish line.   She alertly jumped over them and won the race.

That's short track speedskating folks, and all the participants and knowledgeable fans know it.  That's why Ohno was every bit the gracious silver medallist the other night.  Falls are part of the sport.  He accepts it graciously and moves on.

That's not to say that disqualifications don't occur during a race -- the South Korean skater who caused the mishap in the 1000 meter race was disqualified.  Had he managed to make it across the finish line in the top three slots, he would have been denied a medal.   But the fact that he cause three other skaters to fall is just tough luck for the other skaters.  That's life, and that's speedskating.

Now there are a few exceptions when a race will be re-run.  If a skater falls during the race and is hurt so badly that he is unable to move off the track and therefore poses an obstacle to the other skaters, the race will be stopped and re-run.

If an official makes a serious mistake, such as miscounting laps or disallowing a qualified skater from skating a race, the race may be re-run.   A number of years ago, my daughter Mallory finished in second place in a race.  The winner, a very sweet girl from another team, was very excited because it was the first time she ever won a race.   A few minutes after the race was completed, it was determined that one of the skaters who should have been in the race was incorrectly excluded by an official.  The race was re-run, and this time Mallory won.  The other skater was absolutely devastated.  That's life.  That's speedskating.

There are other exceptions that might cause a race to be re-run, but they are as rare as they are humorous.  I recall one race where my daughter Jessica began shaking her arm and slowing down in the middle of the race. The officials stopped the race.  Turns out a nervous skater had puked in the middle of the race, and Jessica had the misfortune to be skating directly behind her.   The officials wisely decided to stop the race to clean the floor -- and to allow my daughter, the pukee,  to clean herself. To this day, I regret not having videotaped that race.

The good thing about all of this is that speedskaters learn at an early age how to deal with the fact that life isn't fair.  They learn to win without bragging, and how to lose without crying, no matter what the circumstances.  They learn that  there will always be another race, another day.  And that makes speedskaters very special people in my book -- gracious both in victory and defeat, in skating and in life.  It's a valuable lesson that most people never learn.

The world of speedskating is a small community, and over the years my kids have had many opportunities to skate with such world champions as Derek Parra, Derek Downing, and Chad Hedrick.  All of them are special people and great role models.

Derek Parra:  Nice Guys Finish First

Which brings me to Derek D. Parra, or D.D., as he is known to his friends. When Derek won the silver medal in the 5000 meter race last week, all of the media were surprised.  I was not surprised in the least, because prior to converting to ice speedskating, Derek was a world champion in a far more difficult sport -- inline speedskating.

Why is inline speedskating more difficult than ice speedskating?  Because inline speedskaters have to deal with a little thing called friction, which means that inline speedskaters, as a whole, are much better conditioned athletes than ice speedskaters.  That is why skaters like Derek Parra and Jennifer Rodriquez are enjoying much success on the ice even though they have only been competing on ice for a few years -- they are superbly conditioned athletes, used to skating far longer races and expending far more energy to fight friction than are ice speedskaters.

Derek was already a world champion in-line speedskater when we first met him.  My oldest daughter Michelle had such a crush on him that she wrote a poem about him.  The poem was published in a speedskating magazine. Unfortunately for Michelle, her sister Jessica was incorrectly credited as the author.  That's what happens when you have three daughters who look alike who all speedskate.

One year, at the national speedskating championships, one of my daughters was disqualified in a relay race for coming out of the relay box a lap early.  She was devastated.

The following spring, we were all at a skating meet in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Derek was there, and my daughter and I were watching him skate a relay race.  Derek made the same dumb mistake -- he came out of the relay box a lap too soon and was disqualified.  I turned to my daughter and said, "See, even a world champion is capable of making the same mistake you made."

Later, I told Derek about my daughter's similar misfortune and thanked him for screwing up and making her feel better.  Derek laughed good naturedly because he knew that just the act of competing graciously is what made him a winner.

Last night, my family and I were gathered around the television in Atlanta to watch Derek skate his specialty, the 1500 meter race.  We were screaming so loud that he must have heard us in Utah.  Derek was all smiles when he won the gold medal.  But he would have been all smiles if he had finished dead last, because Derek knows that speedskating is a microcosm of life.

Derek has one more race, the 10,000 meter, tomorrow at 2:00 P.M.   He is not expected to place in this race.  But I for one won't be a bit surprised if he takes home his third Olympic medal, proving once again that nice guys do finish first.