He isn't sure how many Olympics he has left and wants to make the most of the Vancouver Games, especially if it's his last time zipping around the short track.

“I've been in this a long time. Olympic sports,” said Ohno, who will be 27 in the winter of 2010. “It's not like professional sports.”

Ohno is looking beyond the World Cup season, which opens this weekend at the Utah Olympic Oval. He is the defending overall champion and will compete to win each race, but placing will be secondary to how well he skates as he builds toward an Olympics 16 months away.

Ohno has starred at the last two Olympics and., barring injury, will be a U.S. favorite again in Vancouver. He is still young but hardly the brash 19-year-old of 2002 when his soul patch and bandanna were practically trademarks of the Salt Lake City Games.

Skating into his early 30s and the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, isn't something he wants to think about until after Vancouver.

“As much as I love the sport, there has to be a time when I've got to walk away,” Ohno said. “It'd be nice if I could live in this fairy-tale land where I can skate and be 21 years old forever and be in great shape and never have an injury. But that's not life.”

He considered leaving the free-for-all frenzy of short-track skating after winning a gold and two bronze medals at the Turin Games two years ago. He took a year off, skated the last half of the 2007 season and then left the ice for the ballroom as a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars.”

His charisma and nimble feet made him the darling of the show, much like the Olympics. Ohno and partner Julianne Hough won the show's second season and Ohno spent the rest of that summer living in Los Angeles considering his options. He chose skating over Hollywood, wanting a chance to skate in an Olympics a few hours north of his hometown of Seattle.

“If the games weren't in North America, I'm not sure I can say I would have pushed for another games,” he said.

Ohno said the rigors of dancing – and it was physically demanding – didn't use the same muscles, so he had some catching up to do when he returned to skating. He didn't want a long offseason to force him to start over again with his training.

“Any athlete at this level and the elite level knows really when they should turn the light switch on and off. It's been on all summer,” he said.

Ohno was so serious about getting an early start on Vancouver that he moved to Salt Lake City about a year ago to train full time at the Utah Olympic Oval, site of the 2002 long track races and the new home of U.S. Speedskating. He said he hasn't stopped since, spending some 12-hour days working out this summer with Vancouver on his mind.

He said his main goal this season and the early part of next year will be scouting the competition he will face in 2010.

“The results this year are not so important as certain strategies we're going to implement,” he said.

U.S. short-track coach Jae Su Chun said Ohno has always had the strength to win, but he has been trying to polish his stride, too.

“Long time ago when he was young, it was no problem, just skating with power,” said the coach, a South Korean who took over the U.S. short-track program last year. “For 2010, he really needs technique and efficient skating.”

Chun said Ohno could easily top his previous two Olympics if he can hone his technique and peak at Vancouver. He won a gold and a silver in 2002 and another gold and two bronze medals in 2006.

That ties him with Eric Heiden for the second-most medals in U.S. Winter Olympic history and one behind long-track skater Bonnie Blair's U.S. record of six medals. Ohno was two years away from being born when Heiden won five golds at Lake Placid in 1980 and was just a kid when Blair skated in 1988, '92 and '94. Now he's the old man on the team, a role he has been enjoying.

The next generation of U.S. skaters has been improving. Chun said that's pushing Ohno, who is removed from the days when nobody could challenge him.

Ohno will be 31 if he skates in the 2014 Games. But that will not be the only factor in deciding if he will compete then. He liked his moonlighting stint as a dancer and could have a future in the entertainment industry.

“From an age perspective, I could definitely do another games,” he said. “But we'll see. I'd take some serious time.”