KEARNS — Apolo Anton Ohno has been around the block — or rather the rink — probably more times than anyone else on the U.S. speedskating squad.
A veteran of two Olympics and a winner of multiple medals, the reigning king of short track is a grizzled veteran compared to most of his teammates — and he's only 26.
And he's getting used to being asked, sometimes by himself, how much longer he plans on competing in the demanding sport. He said he's not exactly sure if he'll skate beyond the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, but that he is feeling near the top of his game and compared his training to a quote from an unnamed philosopher he recently read.
"It said a lion is at its strongest when it knows it's on its way out," Ohno said.
If so, speedskating fans might be in for a few loud roars this weekend as Ohno and the rest of his team open up the World Cup season at the Utah Olympic Oval on Friday.
"I'm hungry every single year," he said. "I'm a competitor and I want to do my best. I want to be on the podium."
Podiums are very important to athletes like Ohno. Finishing on them can help attract sponsors and pay the bills. Not finding a spot on them can sometimes be the difference between qualifying for the Olympics and not.
In 16 months, Ohno will be hoping to find his way to the top step of the Olympic podium again. Vancouver is just an hour or so away from his hometown of Seattle, and he hopes to peak just in time to put on a show for what will be an almost-home crowd.
Considering that Ohno may not skate competitively beyond the 2010 Games, this weekend's events may be one of the last chances Utahns have to see the Soul-Patched One race in the state where he vaulted himself into the pop culture atmosphere.
Ohno, after splitting time between Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and wherever his dancing or endorsement interests took him, has now settled in Utah full time. The "Dancing With the Stars" champion — who won in 2007 with Utahn Julianne Hough — said he decided all the external fun and games was a bit too distracting and kept him off the ice too much.
With Vancouver in the not-too-distant future, Ohno knows it's time for focus.
His "offseason" has been busy and grueling — one filled with 12-hour days at the Oval refining and perfecting the technique he has become so familiar with.
"Any athlete at this level, an elite level, knows when they should really turn the light switch on and when they should turn it off," Ohno said. "And it's been on all summer."
That's good news to the other members of the U.S. team.
With Ohno often training on his own with his own coaches in the past, some of the younger skaters on the national team have not had the benefit of learning from the best.
"He's the strongest athlete in the world in speedskating," Ryan Leveille, also a member of the long track team, said. "Nobody is as strong as him. So just having him on the same ice, you learn by skating with him ... everybody wants to beat Apolo."
They also want to pick his brain and learn the tricks of the trade.
It's those tricks Ohno wants to work on for the next 12 to16 months. While winning is the primary goal, scouting his opponents is also high on Ohno's priority list.
Calling short track speedskating a chess game featuring attacks, counterattacks and winning moves, Ohno said he hopes to use this World Cup season to learn the best way to beat the Koreans, Canadians and anyone else the world lines up against him.
"It's a very strange sport," he said. "We work so hard, for so long, on a very small thing. All so we can be in position to make the right move at the right time."
Being in Utah, living near the oval and having the national coaches and team to use as resources has Ohno excited to see what he can do in a full season after jumping into the 2007-08 season only after his "Dancing With the Stars" obligations were over.
"It's the first time I was able to train in a long time," Ohno said. "There is no offseason, essentially. I trained hard."
The crowds at the Utah Olympic Oval will certainly be cheering loudly for Ohno. The fan club he's garnered over the years as a skater and dancer are as visible as they are audible and they will probably be out in force this weekend.
It might be one of few opportunities to see him before he finally hangs his golden skates up for good.
"As much as I love the sport, there has to be a time when I've got to walk away," Ohno said. "It'd be nice if I could live in this fairy-tale land where I can skate and be 21 years old forever and be in great shape and never have an injury. But that's not life."
Serious consideration to retirement, however, will have to wait.
Vancouver, he says, is all that matters for the next 16 months.
E-mail: jeborn@desnews.com