1980: Heiden's Gold Heist
The man who
won the speed skating equivalent of a sprint, a marathon, and everything in
between
by John Gettings
While covering the
1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., Washington Post reporter
Leonard Shapiro described American speed skater Eric Heiden as "a Secretariat
on skates."
But not even the legendary thoroughbred champion, accustomed
to two-minute sprints, could likely follow the ice tracks laid down by Heiden
over those nine days in February.
The 21-year-old
Wisconsin native won five individual gold medals in speed skating. He
won the speed skating equivalent of a sprint, a marathon, and everything in
between.
He set five Olympic records and one world record, and defeated
every single one of the 144 athletes competing in the five events.
His medal haul began with a .34-second victory
in the 500-meter race over Yevgeny Kulikov the defending Olympic champion
and world record holder. The next day he defeated world record holder Kai
Arne Stenshjemmet in the 5,000-meter race by more than a second.
Three days later he won the 1,000-meter race by 1.5 seconds, and 48 hours
after that he captured his fourth gold, in the 1,500-meter race. Both of thoese
victories were over Norway's Kai Arne Stenshjemmet.
The night before
his final event Heiden watched the U.S. men's hockey team's "
Miracle on Ice" upset of the Soviet Union in
the tournament semifinals. The hockey team, which would later defeat Finland
in the finals, won the only non-Heiden gold for the U.S. at the 1980 Games.
On the next-to-last day of competition, Heiden skated in the 10,000-meter
race, attempting to win his fifth gold medal. Shapiro describes the scene
at the Olympic Speed Skating Oval:
"There were 3,000 (people)
on the inside and hundreds more peeking over fences, leaning over balconies
of nearby restaurants, and even hanging in trees."
Heiden didn't disappoint. He calmly and methodically smashed the world record
by 6.2 seconds, winning in 14:28.13.
His
five gold medals is still a U.S. Olympic record for a single Winter Games.
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
