GANGNEUNG, South Korea – It was a tough night for North Korean short-track speed skater Kwang Bom Jong, who fell twice in the heat phase of the men’s 500 meters and was eventually disqualified for pushing off a Japanese skater. 
 
 For diplomatic purposes, Jong was added as the 33rd entry into what was supposed to be a 32-racer field, but he didn’t last long. 
 
 On the first start, he fell almost immediately after coming off the line. As he landed, he reached out his hand in a way that looked to some in the crowd like he was trying to trip Japan’s Ryosuke Sakazume. 
 
 Jong, flanked by a handler, did not stop to speak with reporters after the race. He was only entered in this one event and thus his Olympics were, while eventful, quickly over. 
 
 Sakazume said that he wasn’t exactly sure what happened and thus didn’t think Jong tried to trip him on purpose, as some in the crowd believed. Short-track speed skating, particularly the 500-meter race, is rife with collisions, disqualifications and general mayhem. 
 
 “I believe it was unintentional,” Japan’s Ryosuke Sakazume said. “His hand happened to be by my skate as he fell down.” 
 
 “I don’t know what was his intention,” Japan’s coach, Jonathan Guilmette, said. “It is really hard to judge what’s the intention. I don’t know if he tried to grab the skates or if he is just trying to hold onto something like a reflex – there are so many hands all over in our sport. That was a reflex thing more than trying to trip over someone else.” 
 
 North Korean short-track speed skater Kwang Bom Jong slides on the ice. (EFE) 
 
 Officials opted for a restart even though Jong hadn’t been bumped by any other skater and fell on his own. Under the rules, the race should have just continued. 
 
 The second start didn’t go much better. Jong remained upright but only through half a lap when he again got mixed up with Sakazume. This time Jong pushed Sakazume, who was able to remain on his feet anyway. Jong, however, fell before sliding across the ice and crashing into the side boards. 
 
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 Jong finished the race in a distant fourth and was later disqualified by the judges for the maneuver. 
 
 The packed house at the Gangneung Ice Arena went crazy at the scene. Short-track skating is very popular in South Korea and the entry of a North Korean athlete was met with great anticipation. Few, if any, in attendance had ever seen a North Korean compete before. 
 
 While there has been much fanfare over the women’s hockey team featuring a combined roster of North and South Koreans, that sport is not popular here. Short-track speed skating, though, produces some of the rowdiest crowds of the Games. Tuesday was capped by a gold medal victory by the South Koreans in the ladies’ 3,000-meter relay. 
 
 Adding to the scene, dozens of red-clad, unification-flag waving North Korean cheerleaders were in attendance to root Jong on. 
 
 Instead, it was a memorable fall and disqualification. 
 
 Sakazume said that’s short-track racing. Almost everyone has been disqualified at some point. Just making it through the race is enough for a measure of celebration. 
 
 “Each one of us really intended to win the race,” Sakazume, who finished second and advanced through qualifying, said. “We intended to maintain our initial nice image. But as the race went on, it just didn’t happen.” 
 
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 North Korea's Jong Kwang Bom had a rough day on the ice. (Photo: ARIS MESSINIS, AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 GANGNEUNG, South Korea – As days at the Winter Olympics go, speedskater Jong Kwang Bom didn’t have the best one. It’s presumably not easy being part of the North Korean contingent to have ventured here to the enemy (kind of) South on the orders of divine leader Kim Jong Un, in unfamiliar surroundings and living among visitors from nasty capitalist countries. 
 
 However, it had all looked pretty good for Jong, a 17-year-old hailing from the mysterious wonderland of Pyongyang. He had an inside start position for the most rapid of short-track races, the 500 meters. North Korea’s “army of beauties” cheer squad was in the stands, still waving and cheering and looking immaculate more than two weeks into this thing. 
 
 And then the gun went off to start heat seven. And then Jong took a couple of steps. And then … he face-planted onto the ice. As he fell, he reached up and, in a feat of desperation or maybe just looking for a dramatic ending to the whole thing, appeared to try to grab the skate of the Japanese skater in front of him. 
 
 The athlete biographies for the North Korean team are hilariously sparse. According to information provided to the IOC by the North Korean officials, Jong started racing as a young boy with his friends, trains at a university sports club and has a natural talent for his sport. He’s male, and he stands 5 feet 9. That’s it. 
 
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 It didn’t look like he had much natural talent here. After the race was restarted following the initial crash, he didn’t last much longer the second time around, colliding with Japan’s Ryosuke Sakazume again and falling once more. Although he eventually got to his feet and skated slowly around to complete the four-and-a-half laps, in reality, his Olympics racing experience lasted about three combined seconds. Hopefully, the food in the Athletes’ Village is good. 
 
 As he emerged in the interview zone afterward, Jong wore the kind of look you’d expect from someone who might have to go home and explain to a military regime with nuclear weapons why you performed so badly while representing your country. 
 
 Man, was he bad. We don’t know much about the North, but hopefully he won’t get punished. And members of the Olympic family from other countries rallied around him, kind of. 
 
 Sakazume might have a future as a politician. He insisted he didn’t think Jong had tried to pull him down by reaching for his skate – “a reflex” -- although the coy grin on his face suggested otherwise. 
 
 Sakazume’s coach Jonathan Guilmette claimed it wasn’t that unusual for racers to fall on their faces at the start of the 500 as they seek to launch explosively off the line. “It happens at least once every World Cup event,” Guilmette said. 
 
 Thomas Hong, the American skater whose hopes of progressing to the quarterfinals ended when Jong crashed in front of him on the restart, was diplomatic too. “It did affect me because I was just too close,” Hong said. “But unpredictability and short track just go hand-in-hand.” 
 
 Jong didn’t have much to say -- none of the North Koreans do, from the skiers to the members of the unified hockey team. When asked for comment, Jong turned his head the other way and kept walking. 
 
 It would be great to have a conversation with a North Korean athlete, a real one, to see what they’re thinking and, more than anything, what they think of the rest of the world. 
 
 But this wasn’t the day for that, if for no other reason than it was a rough day for Jong, made rougher by the fact that everyone was watching.
– In his defense, Jong Kwang Bom is only 17 and "clearly" had no business lining up to race as an Olympic speedskater for North Korea, per a post at USA Today. But race he did, and things did not end well. Jong fell almost immediately after the start of his 500-meter heat, triggering an official do-over. He lasted a little longer on his second attempt but soon enough crashed into the boards. Yahoo Sports has video of the races, including one potentially controversial moment: After his first fall, Jong appears to take a swipe at a Japanese skater's leg, though afterward Ryosuke Sakazume gave Jong the benefit of the doubt and chalked it up to a "reflex."