Short track speed skating at the 2006 Winter Olympics – Men's 500 metres

Heats

The first round was held on 22 February. There were seven heats of three or four skaters each, with the top two finishers and the two fastest third-place skaters moving on to the quarterfinals.^[1]

Heat 1

Heat	Rank	Athlete	Country	Result	Notes
1	1	Ahn Hyun-soo	South Korea	42.960	Q
1	2	Dariusz Kulesza	Poland	42.960	Q
1	3	Tyson Heung	Germany	43.572
2	1	Éric Bédard	Canada	42.480	Q
2	2	Jon Eley	Great Britain	42.511	Q
2	3	Vyacheslav Kurginyan	Germany	43.183
2	4	Alex McEwan	Australia	45.173
3	1	Wim de Deyne	Belgium	42.883	Q
3	2	Arian Nachbar	Germany	43.006	Q
3	3	Volodymyr Grygoriev	Ukraine	43.583
3	4	Matus Uzak	Slovakia	45.173
4	1	Satoru Terao	Japan	42.607	Q
4	2	François-Louis Tremblay	Canada	42.779	Q
4	3	Cees Juffermans	Netherlands	42.849	q
4	4	Seo Ho-jin	South Korea	DQ
5	1	Li Juajun	China	42.914	Q
5	2	Peter Darazs	Hungary	42.929	Q
5	3	Mikhail Rajine	Russia	44.077
5	4	Anthony Lobello	United States	1:13.722
6	1	Lee Ho-suk	South Korea	42.676	Q
6	2	Li Haonan	China	42.703	Q
6	3	Nicola Rodigari	Italy	42.819	q
6	4	Pieter Gysel	Belgium	42.980
7	1	Apolo Anton Ohno	United States	42.836	Q
7	2	Roberto Serra	Italy	43.120	Q
7	3	Takafumi Nishitani	Japan	43.212
7	4	Paul Stanley	Great Britain	43.486

Quarterfinals

The top two finishers in each of the four quarterfinals advanced to the semifinals.^[1]

Quarterfinal 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Result	Notes
1	Ahn Hyun-soo	South Korea	42.213	Q
2	Satoru Terao	Japan	42.471	Q
3	Cees Juffermans	Netherlands	42.515
4	Arian Nachbar	Germany	42.605

Quarterfinal 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Result	Notes
1	Li Juajun	China	43.105	Q
2	Nicola Rodigari	Italy	43.701	Q
3	Peter Darazs	Hungary	1:01.289
4	Lee Ho-suk	South Korea	1:22.896

Quarterfinal 3

Rank	Athlete	Country	Result	Notes
1	Éric Bédard	Canada	42.267	Q
2	Jon Eley	Great Britain	42.424	Q
3	Roberto Serra	Italy	42.773
4	Li Haonan	China	DQ

Quarterfinal 4

Rank	Athlete	Country	Result	Notes
1	Apolo Anton Ohno	United States	42.020	Q
2	François-Louis Tremblay	Canada	42.110	Q
3	Wim de Deyne	Belgium	42.979
4	Dariusz Kulesza	Poland	DQ

Semifinals

The top two finishers in each of the two semifinals qualified for the A final, while the third and fourth place skaters advanced to the B Final.^[1] In the first semifinal, China's Li Jiajun impeded Britain's Jon Eley, resulting in Li's disqualification, while Eley, who finished third in the race, was advanced to the final.^[2]

Semifinal 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Result	Notes
1	François-Louis Tremblay	Canada	42.261	QA
2	Apolo Anton Ohno	United States	42.400	QA
3	Jon Eley	Great Britain	42.650	ADV
4	Li Juajun	China	DQ

Semifinal 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Result	Notes
1	Ahn Hyun-soo	South Korea	41.826	QA
2	Éric Bédard	Canada	41.950	QA
3	Satoru Terao	Japan	42.120	QB
4	Nicola Rodigari	Italy	42.131	QB

Finals

The five qualifying skaters competed in Final A, while two other raced for 6th place in Final B.^[1]

Final A

Rank	Athlete	Country	Result	Notes
	Apolo Anton Ohno	United States	41.935
	François-Louis Tremblay	Canada	42.002
	Ahn Hyun-soo	South Korea	42.089
4	Éric Bédard	Canada	42.093
5	Jon Eley	Great Britain	42.497

Final B

Rank	Athlete	Country	Result	Notes
6	Satoru Terao	Japan	42.377
7	Nicola Rodigari	Italy	42.398