The Washington Post reports Celski failed to medal today in his first Olympic event at the Sochi games, the 1500 meter, coming in fourth
Celski looked like he was about to make a move to the front of the pack, but made contact with another skater and fell back in his best event.
He won the bronze at this event in 2010.
“I went up, I think. with eight (laps) to go and pushed myself in first … but then the race was slow enough to where people kept moving up and up. And unfortunately I was in a bad position in one of the corners and kind of got bumped and lost my momentum,” said Celski in USA Today.
Coming away with the gold was Charles Hamelin of Canada, followed by Tianyu Han of China and Victor An of Russia.
The Filipino American from Federal Way, Washington is considered the leader of Team USA’s short track team with Apolo Ohno now retired. He is also considered Team USA’s best hope for gold in short track.
Celski came back from a horrendous accident to win the medals in Vancouver when he fell at the US Trials five months before the Olympics and his skates sliced open his legs.
The comeback exhausted Celski and after Vancouver he retired from speed skating, only to get the juices flowing again to come back for his second Olympics.
In addition to the 1500, he will compete in the 1000-m and 500-m short track events as well as 5,000 meter relay. You can read more of Celski’s reaction to his fourth place finish in USA Today.
