The Most Hated Man in South Korea

You'd think it would be the little communist dictator to the north Kim Jong "Mentally" Il, but it's actually an American short track speed skater:

Apolo Anton Ohno may be feted at home for his Olympic feats, but he's better known in South Korea as the "king of fouls."

The American short-track speedskater, who goes up against the South Koreans again when he races for a historic seventh Winter Olympics medal on Saturday, may well be the athlete South Koreans hate the most.

One company once sold toilet paper emblazoned with Ohno's face: Ohno joyfully winning the gold, Ohno kissing his medal, Ohno laughing. One video game features an Ohno character you can shoot in the head, and to call something "Ohnolike" is to deride it as a dirty trick.

The bad blood goes back eight years to the Salt Lake City Olympics, where South Koreans believe Ohno stole the gold from Kim Dong-sung, who finished first in the 1,500-meter race but was disqualified for blocking. Ohno, then a teenager competing in his first Olympics, threw up his arms as he tried to pass Kim, as though to cry foul.

As Ohno stepped up to claim his gold, his joy only sealed South Koreans' disgust for an athlete lambasted as ungracious and unsportsmanlike. Thousands of angry anti-Ohno e-mails shut down the U.S. Olympic Committee server for nine hours.

Hatred of Ohno is said to have fueled anti-American sentiment back then, and it doesn't help that his father, Yuki, was born in Japan, the nation that colonized Korea from 1910 to 1945. South Koreans try to trounce Japan as often as possible on the playing field, and Ohno is not exempt.

The animosity toward Ohno grew so heated that the entire American short-track team withdrew from a World Cup event held in South Korea in 2003, citing death threats against Ohno. In 2005, the athlete traveled in South Korea, reportedly under the guard of police.

Last year, with tensions appearing to simmer down, Ohno chose to make the trip for a World Cup event and was roundly booed by the crowd in the coastal city of Gangneung. And when a South Korean won gold and Ohno was disqualified, the audience roared and cheered with approval.

Ohno, older and wiser, shrugged off the booing. And he managed to earn the crowd's grudging respect with a clean skate later in the competition, drawing applause for an undisputed gold medal finish.

I'm guessing he's going to tick them off again in some of his remaining events.