It was the annual media day for the national speedskating team, and the event drew a half-dozen media members. The turnout meant that beyond the county limits of Milwaukee, the sport had regained its accustomed anonymity in the United States.
For two weeks every four years, the nation rediscovers speedskating, which has always provided the bulk of America`s few medals in the Winter Olympics. Last February in Calgary, it also provided two of the Games` biggest heroes, one triumphant, the other tragic.
Both of them, Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen, were the objects of our attentionfor a few seconds, and then we moved on quickly to other things. Their lives have moved on, too, but the sport is still a major part of them, as it has been for the thousands of hours since Blair and Jansen first willed themselves to excel.
Blair is 24, Jansen 23. Both are in only the freshman year of college, a testament to the time each has given to a sport neither is willing to give up, even after competing in two Olympics. Seeing them back on the ice at the Wisconsin Olympic Rink makes the present blur into the past and seem like nothing is different than it was a year or a decade ago. Blair and Jansen were rink rats then and they are still, nearly a year after the week that assured that their lives would never be the same.
Blair won an Olympic gold medal, and her delightful plainness-was there ever so average an American as she?-won the hearts and esteem of her country. Jansen lost a sister and the medals he had a reason to expect, yet his courage won him more than just heartfelt sympathy.
Their achievements drew sacks of mail and even a little money from commercial interests. Blair was used in a Bulova watch ad in Time. Jansen is sponsored by Miller, his hometown`s beer.
Once again, though, each has returned to being a speedskater, which means you probably didn`t know that two weeks ago Blair was first and Jansen third in the U.S. sprint championships and that next month both will be competing in the World Sprint Championships in The Netherlands.
That is, after all, what they have always done in the winter.
”Things are pretty normal,” Blair says. ”The only thing that has changed is you happen to get recognized going through airports. The other day, I was coming through Minneapolis to get here and some guy recognized me. I really hadn`t been out of Butte in a long time, and it kind of threw me off-I had kind of forgotten that happens. But that guy was from Milwaukee.”
Bonnie Blair has given speeches in so many places she can only say
”gol-lee” when asked to remember them. Blair says ”gol-lee” a lot when she is searching for an answer. Still. The apple-pie kid sponsored by the Champaign Police Benevolent Association is still as honest to goodness as ever.
Her Champaign-based agent, Jim Finks, thought that image would be worth as much as gymnast Mary Lou Retton, but later admitted making that comparison was a mistake. Except for the speaking engagements, few of them recent, Blair is not unlike the thousands of past Olympians for whom the gold medal will be their lasting treasure.
She returned to Montana in late summer to be with her boyfriend, Dave Silk, start school at Montana Tech and continue training on the new Olympic oval in Butte. She got three A`s and two B`s last term in courses leading to a degree in health science.
”School is going better than skating,” she says.
Her priorities may have shifted last fall, but Blair remains the best U.S. female skater, winning all four races (two 500 meters and two 1000s) at the sprint nationals. She intends to take a couple courses next term, then compete in World Cup races in Butte and Calgary before the World Sprint Championships.
”I`d like to get at least third in the worlds,” says Blair, who was third last year and second in 1987.
She has not yet decided about trying for the 1992 Olympics, preferring to continue on a year-to-year basis. Blair no longer has a need to prove herself, as the gold and bronze Olympic medals attest. She may be neither rich nor famous, but she is celebrated to the 1,700 people who wrote her.
”I`ve had kids and people in their 90s say that my (winning) race in the Olympics was one of the most thrilling moments in their lives. You don`t realize how much you are touching people without even knowing it.”
”Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”-
Motto of the Special Olympics.
Dan Jansen was reminded of that message in one of the thousands of letters he received after falling twice in two races in Calgary. The letter also included one of the gold medals Mark Arrowood of Doylestown, Pa., had won in Special Olympics competition.
”I want to share one of my gold medals with you because I don`t like to see you not get one,” Arrowood explained.
Arrowood shared something else. His father had died before he won the gold medal seven years ago. Jansen`s sister, Jane, died the morning of his first Olympic race, the 500 meters.
Jansen called his parents in West Allis to ask if they wanted him to skate the 500 meters that day, and they said he should try. His mother, Gerry, knows that was the only answer, and yet she questions it.
”When I saw him (on TV) standing there at the starting line, I knew he was shaken and very pale, and I thought, `Oh, my, what have we asked you to do?` ” she said recently.
Jansen still feels it wasn`t too much to try, even though he now realizes there was no way he could have won, as he had expected to do. This way, at least, he won`t be left to wonder what might have happened if he did not skate.
Jansen tried again, in the 1,000 meters, and he fell again, as the sympathetic world looked on in disappointment and dismay. Later in the winter, with few watching, he won the World Cup season title in the 1,000 meters and was second in the 500. Before the Games, another small audience had seen him win the World Sprint Championships.
”Had I won the two medals I was positive I could have won, I might have retired,” he says. ”But I don`t know if I was ready to be done yet.”
Instead, after a whirlwind of speaking engagements, Jansen returned to the sport and the memories when he joined seven other U.S. skaters at the University of Calgary, where they took classes and trained on the Olympic Oval on the campus.
”Until I got back there, I was so busy I had no time to sit back and reflect on what happened,” he says. ”The worst part was the grieving for my sister that I had skipped over or was postponing. I might have blocked that out forever if I hadn`t gone back to Calgary.”
Jansen also fell in the first of four races at the U.S. sprint nationals but was able to slide across the finish line on his stomach. Despite a sore hip, he got up and earned the right to defend his world title.
Once again, he would be known as a skater instead of a tragic hero, although this time few would ever hear about it. He too has yet to decide about 1992.
”I`ve accomplished enough of my personal goals,” he says. ”The only thing I don`t have is an Olympic medal. If that doesn`t happen, I can live with it.”
