ATTTENTION - ADDS anger over Jay Leno's joke ///

SEOUL, Feb 26 (AFP) - Kim Dong-Sung may not have an Olympic title but he will get a gold medal and the cash benefits of a winner along with a hero's welcome when he returns to South Korea from Salt Lake City on Wednesday.

The disqualification of the 21-year-old Kim from first place in the 1,500 metres race last week unleashed a national wave of sympathy for the skater and widespread anti-US hostility after an American rival was given the title.

Adverts taken out by companies in South Korean newspapers called Kim "the real winner."

And the sponsor of the South Korean short-track skating team said it would award a "gold medal" and 48 million won (36,000 dollars) to Kim.

The money will match the sum offered by the Korean Olympic Committee to any gold medal winner.

"The reward decision was made to encourage and console Kim," J.Y. Lee, a spokeswoman for Nature's Sunshine Korea, a distribution firm, told AFP.

The Korea Skating Union has approved the prize and will arrange a special award ceremony, she added.

The Ssangyong Construction firm has started placing newspaper adverts saying: "We think you are the real winner."

"All South Koreans probably feel the same way we do about Kim," Ssangyong Construction spokesman Cho Dae-Hee said.

Internet websites have launched fund-raising campaigns to pay for Kim's "stolen" gold medal.

Kim was disqualified for blocking his US rival Apolo Anton Ohno on the last lap of the race. Ohno, who finished second, was awarded the gold.

More than 16,000 angry e-mail protests from South Koreans caused the US Olympic Committee's server to shut down.

A formal protest by South Korea was rejected however by an International Olympic Committee arbitration panel.

The South Korean Olympic team had considered boycotting the Olympics closing ceremony but later backed down.

The controversy has fuelled anti-US sentiment. Crude anti-American pop songs and messages cursing the United States have rebounded around Korean cyber-space since the ruling.

Anti-US sentiment has been further inflamed after US comedian Jay Leno made a joke about Kim on the "Tonight" show.

Leno said the South Korean skater must have kicked a dog in frustration - then eaten it, after losing the gold medal to his US rival Ohno.

Leno's joke, which was aired on South Korean television, triggered a flurry of protest calls from viewers, and veteran politician Kim Jong-Pil angrily reacted.

"What an ignorant son-of-a-bitch he is. He appears to have no consideration for the national feelings of another country," said Kim, a former prime minister who leads the opposition United Liberal Democrats (ULD).

The ULD said it would send a letter of protest to Leno's US broadcasting company, NBC.

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