Take one, and you could be on your way to fame and fortune. The other could lead to doom and despair.

Luckily, Apolo Anton Ohno seems to have selected the correct path. During a rebellious childhood, he appeared destined to be headed down a rocky road. But he turned it around and found the right path as a short track speed skater.

His next road may be golden - as a medalist at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.

Ohno, just 19 years old, is the United States' top short track medal hopeful entering the Games, but it wasn't long ago that he was a rebellious teen-ager in a bad situation.

"I mostly was just hanging with the wrong crowd and people," Ohno said. "Being in my school, it was pretty easy to do that. I had a lot of friends who were gang bangers in Seattle. If I hadn't have left, it could have led to something a lot more severe."

While Ohno avoided trouble with the law, he was inching perilously closer to stepping over the line.

"It could have gone either way," Ohno said. "I don't know if I could rate how close I came because once you're involved with that kind of lifestyle going in that direction, you can either turn it around or keep going one way. And at the time I was trying to do both, and that's just not going to happen."

At times, Ohno was hanging out with 18- and 19-year-olds. He was just 14.

"I had no clue," Ohno said, on why they would hang out with him. "Always when I was younger, I would hang out with older people. I was taken to a lot of house parties and clubs. It just was not healthy being 14 and hanging out with 18- and 19-year-olds."

Seattle to Lake Placid
At the same time, Ohno was a budding sensation in speed skating but didn't get nearly as much as exposure as some of the other young talents. His father, Yuki, decided to send him to Lake Placid, N.Y., to the Olympic Training Center so Apolo could be in a training environment all the time. While athletes had to be at least 15 to live in the OTC, his father and the coaches pulled some strings to get him in.

Ohno was not pleased. He made it painfully obvious he wanted nothing to do with Lake Placid.

"The first time he took me to the airport, he took me there and said goodbye and then he left," Ohno said. "I called one of my friends to pick me up from the airport and I went to his house. Dad was pretty angry when he found out about that, but I was so young, I was totally rebellious against anything - my dad or anyone with authority."

Yuki Ohno made sure his son was on the airplane the next time, but it didn't change Apolo's feelings.

"I hated the first month I was out there in Lake Placid," Ohno said. "Being moved from Seattle to New York is a big change, especially Lake Placid, being such a small town. I've never been in that kind of environment where I kind of felt caged for a little bit.

"I had to get up at 6 o'clock every morning and run. I had set times I had to be where. So I was confused. I didn't know why I was there for the first month."

While Ohno was starting his new endeavor, he also had voices from Seattle still trying to lead him back.

"I definitely had contact with my friends and they told me they were going to come get me," Ohno said. "They had told me all this and that, but I think in the back of my head I really felt I should have been there (Lake Placid) and give it a try and I did."

Ups and Downs
Ohno soon found his niche in Lake Placid and began to thrive there. In 1997, he won the U.S. Short Track Championship at age 15. His immediate success led him to dreams of competing on the sport's biggest stage - the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano.

His preparation in the year before the Games didn't cut it, though. He failed to make the team, leaving him to wonder what was next. After the disappointment, Ohno cut himself off from the outside world, spending a week alone in a cabin at Iron Springs Resort, about two hours from Seattle.

"And there was no TV, no telephone. There's nothing. There's ocean and sand and trees and that's it.

"I spent a week in solitude just thinking about that whole year and what I could have done and if I really wanted to keep pursuing this or just go back to school and what I really wanted to do," Ohno said. "I think during that week it just came to me that this is something I was meant to do and I have a gift to skate and this is something I love. So I said if I'm going to do this, I'm going to give it 110 percent."

While the week of solitude helped him sort out his issues, one moment sticks out as an epiphany, not only for the week, but for his career.

"There was one day, it was my third workout of the day, and I was running and it was just pouring," Ohno said. "I had a hole in my shoe and I was getting a huge blister and I was so tired of training, so I stopped and sat on a rock on the side of the road. I was just sitting there. I think I realized that if I really desired to keep speed skating, I had to keep running. So I got back up and kept running. That week was definitely the hardest week ever. It was just so emotional for me."

Since then, his career has taken off. After making the U.S. team for the 1998 World Championships, Ohno flourished with a runner-up finish in the 500-meters and three other Top-6 finishes at Worlds. Just a year later, he became the youngest American ever to win a World Cup when he took the crown at Chang Chun, China, on Dec. 5, 1999, at age 17.

Focus on Future
Ohno's sights are set squarely on the upcoming Olympic Winter Games. While the last Games brought him disappointment, he expects to fare well come in Salt Lake.

"Of course, I want medals," Ohno said. "That's just obvious, but at the same time, if I go to the Games and perform the best I can and mentally and physically I'm all there, then I have no other worries or doubts in my mind about what I'm going to do."

Ohno's name means 'to lead away from.' The name is appropriate. Good and bad, he's gone down both roads. Now he's ready to be led on another path - toward the Olympic podium.

"At times in my life I've been led away from the good, led away from the bad. I think definitely I'm on the path that I was supposed to be."