Two golds down, one to go for Lee

By Sonia Oxley

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - South Korea's Lee Jung-su won his second short track gold medal of the Olympics when he triumphed in the men's 1,000 meters on Saturday to stay on course for pre-Games predictions of a golden hat-trick.

His team mate and world champion Lee Ho-suk took the silver while Apolo Anton Ohno picked up the bronze to become the most decorated U.S. winter Olympian with seven medals.

"Before these Games, people (media) predicted I would get three gold medals and I'm very happy to get two, I have one more to go," Lee, who will compete in the 5,000 relay, told reporters.

Ohno won his seventh medal in three Games, surpassing speedskater Bonnie Blair's American record, and said that had he not slipped with two-and-a-half laps to go and lost a lot of speed he could have claimed gold.

"Argh, if I wouldn't have done that slip I could have won the race," he told reporters.

"You make one mistake and you go from second place to last place. I was able to re-group ... in a very tough race."

His big moment was watched in the packed arena by American 14-times Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps, as well as a number of fans sporting Ohno-esque bandanas and goatees.

"It feels amazing, it's my third Olympic Games. There's no other (short track) athlete here who has done that," said Ohno, referring to the two golds, two silvers and three bronze medals he has won.

After causing both himself and South Korean team mate Sung Si-bak to lose out on medals in the 1,500 final with a careless move that sent them both crashing to the ice meters before the line, Lee Ho-suk made up for his error with a silver.

He said he had watched videos of his past races to try to pick himself up after last week's race.

"What happened in the 1,500 was that I was not able to race the race I wanted to. After my injury I couldn't get back my to my normal sense of the race," he told a news conference.

"What I tried to do is have a positive frame of mind for the future so I watched some videos of my past performances."

Canadian brothers Charles and Francois Hamelin were fourth and fifth to the disappointment of their screaming fans.

There were five skaters in the final instead of four after Francois Hamelin was advanced after he was sent hurtling into the safety mats face first after being impeded by American J.R. Celski in their semi-final.

(additional reporting by Pritha Sarkar; Editing by Miles Evans; To comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)