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

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.[2]

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	Russia	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 Razhin	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

The top two finishers in each of the four quarterfinals advanced to the semifinals.[2]

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

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.[2] 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.[3]

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

The five qualifying skaters competed in Final A, while two other raced for 6th place in Final B.[2]

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