Last chance for Canadian Wotherspoon, 33

RICHMOND, British Columbia - Jeremy Wotherspoon has heard the comparison plenty of times in an Olympic career filed with Dan Jansen-like moments.

Wotherspoon can only hope he ends up like Jansen, atop the podium, finally, with a speedskating gold medal.

The men's 500-meter race Monday is the end of the line for Wotherspoon, offering the 33-year-old Canadian one last shot after all the spills and disappointments of three previous Winter Games.

In a career spanning a dozen years, Wotherspoon has won four sprint world championships, three 500 titles at the single distance world championships and a 1,000 world gold. An Olympic title, however, has eluded him. His silver from his first Olympics - Nagano in 1998 - remains his only medal at the Winter Games.

All too often, he has entered the Olympics as a favorite, only to crash and burn. And at no time more embarrassingly than in Salt Lake City eight years ago, when he stumbled seconds after the starting gun, before he'd even started to gather speed.

In Turin, Italy, Wotherspoon was ninth in the 500 and 11th in the 1,000.

Jansen endured similar heartache at the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, before finally winning gold on his final shot at the 1994 Lillehammer Games.

"It is definitely an easy comparison to make," Wotherspoon said, "but it is hard to be compared because we are different people."

One of his toughest rivals is expected to be Lee Kyou-hyuk of South Korea, who still has no Olympic medal to show from four Winter Games despite winning three of the last four sprint world championships.

Tucker Fredricks figures to be the top American, having learned to train harder after a disappointing performance at the Turin Games four years ago. "I just feel like I am here with a purpose," he said. "I kind of grew up."