But a minute or so later the referee handed down a stunning decision. Kim was disqualified for "cross-tracking" -- improperly altering his line to impede Ohno. Kim, who had picked up the Korean flag to celebrate, threw it angrily down on the ice. Ohno, who had never left the ice and had thrown his arms up as if in victory as he crossed the line, exulted, a smile of pure joy lighting up his face. He didn't act as if he had been bailed out by the ref -- he acted as if he thought he had won all along. Li Jiajun of China won the silver and Canadian Marc Gagnon the bronze.

NBC's expert immediately began backpedaling, explaining that the Korean might in fact have cut Ohno off, going into the intricacies of cross-tracking. And when the replay was shown, you could certainly make an argument Ohno was fouled -- but not one you'd swear by. Kim definitely was in Ohno's way, but how much he changed his line as he dropped down from the outside to the inside, or raised his arm out of its normal course, is hard to say. Certainly as much or more blocking as that seems to go on from time to time without being penalized -- although they may call it more strictly at crucial moments.

It all depends on whether the intent of the rules is to allow all passing attempts, no matter how small the window of opportunity, or whether a subtle amount of positional blocking is allowed. The rule itself doesn't make that clear. It is one of those grave points of theological disputation that may never be resolved, like how many Canadians can do triple salchows on the head of an emotionally vulnerable French judge.

Predictably, the Korean coach was outraged, saying that Ohno "was acting" and impugning the competence of referee James Hewish. But Italys Fabio Carta, who finished fourth, had no vested interest and also blasted the decision, saying, "Its absurd that the Korean was disqualified."

Ohno, for his part, seemed genuinely convinced he was fouled. "I set up the Korean real nice," he told NBC after the race. "He came over on me way too hard." Ohnos teammate Rusty Smith claimed that Kim had been even dirtier in the semifinals, adding, "He got what he deserved."

Bob Costas admitted he didn't have a clue and compared Ohno's flop to a hoops player "selling" a charge.

As for me, I'm going to enjoy this rare moment of karmic payback and weird ethnic-subgroup bonding -- half-Japanese power! -- without guilt. Unless a replay and further expert explanation convinces me that the disqualification was utterly unwarranted -- and thus probably influenced by the rabidly pro-American crowd, which would be totally unacceptable -- I'm going to file it under the heading of "referees are part of sports." No matter what happens from here on out -- whether Ohno goes on to win one or two more medals, or blows up, or is tweaked in some yet to be revealed way by the peculiar demiurges that seem to be hovering over him -- it's going to be an interesting ride. As for Ohno, he's just riding the magic bus. "I come here, perform my best and get a gold medal," he said. "I'm good now. They can just go throw me in the desert and bury me."

Speaking of ethnicity, this lily-white Winter Olympics is starting to get positively colorful. "Multiculturalism" and "diversity" have become such dreary, dutiful, corporate words in daily life that whatever celebratory impulse they might ever have contained has been lost in a righteous murk. But the Olympics present America's racial mosaic as the great gift it is -- one that someday, perhaps, will always mean no more and no less than it did in Nagano, and Sydney, and now in Salt Lake City. When Derek Parra, the first Mexican-American to win gold at the Winter Games, and Vonetta Flowers, the first black person to do so, stood on the podium, with tears running down their faces, as the American flag was raised above them, it was hard not to feel that a tiny piece of the American promise had been fulfilled -- and to wonder how that flag might be made to seem always as friendly and innocent as it was at that moment.

It wouldn't be right to close without saying something about Jim Shea, the third-generation Olympian who, with his father, helped carry the Olympic torch and raced with a picture of his grandfather Jack in his helmet. Shea, who has a touch of Jimmy Stewart -- strong-willed, sincere, a little bit zany -- about him, won gold in the skeleton, blasting down the course after working himself up into an adrenaline-fueled frenzy. By winning, he joined his beloved grandfather as a gold medalist, 70 years after Jack medaled at Lake Placid. It was an extraordinary achievement. But just as memorable, and touching, was his attitude towards the Games. In the impassioned tones of a preacher, Shea said repeatedly that medals didn't mean very much, that competing and taking part in the Olympics was the most important thing. It was a lesson Shea must have learned both from his grandfather -- who was killed in a car wreck just weeks before these Games opened, and into whose coffin he made an offering of Irish whisky -- and his father.

Bob Costas was polite, but he didn't seem to know quite what to do with Shea's Olympic-spirit fervor. And why wouldn't he be taken aback? Why wouldn't all of NBC be confused by someone who says medals don't matter, when it barely shows anything except American medalists?

But perhaps there are other people who understand what Shea means. They are the silver and bronze medalists who stand on the podiums, congratulating the winners and joyously celebrating an outcome that in our society is usually considered unacceptable. They are the other athletes, those who failed to win any prizes but who will take away from the Games indelible memories of sportsmanship and friendship. And they are the spectators, who over the course of the Games learn, perhaps, that there are many kinds of victory -- and that some of them are wrapped in defeat. These are not lessons as easy to grasp as "win the gold" or "get rich." But they are the lessons that those old Olympians passed on to Jim Shea, and that Shea -- carrying on him a worthless old medal his grandfather won in a race he skated just for love -- tried to pass on to us.

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