Speedskater Bonnie Blair knows the emotional rollercoaster ride that goes with winning an Olympic gold medal.
Saturday, she and her U.S. teammates will watch the Olympic torch being lit, signaling the opening of the Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway. And that funny, warm feeling she has felt three times before as Olympic hosts hung gold medals around her neck will be stirred again.
Bonnie Blair will be trying to join swimmer Janet Evans, diver Pat McCormick and sprinter Evelyn Ashford as the only women to ever win four gold medals. If Bonnie can win two of her races, she will stand alone as the country’s greatest female Olympian ever.
The first time Bonnie struck gold was six years ago at the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary. She couldn’t quite get a fix on how she was feeling. It was her family who helped her get it straight.
As she stood on the podium, the medal dangling around her neck and the national anthem flooding her ears, she scanned the packed stadium. Scattered throughout the crowd, she spotted different members of her family.
“One was crying, the next one was screaming and yelling, the next one laughing,” Bonnie said. “I realized that what I was seeing – that was me. All those emotions rolled into one.”
She relived that experience twice in U92, winning the 500 meters – the same event she won in ’88 – and 1,000 meters in Albertville, France. (She also won a bronze in the 1,000 meters in ’88.) It’s no surprise that Blair, now 29, calls to mind her family when remembering her Olympic triumphs. She is the youngest of six children in a close knit family that was skating together even before she was born. Her father learned of her birth at the local ice rink in Cornwall, N.Y., when the arrival of “yet another skater” was announced over the public address system.
Her family moved to Champaign, Ill., when she was 2. She toddled onto the ice soon after – in figure skates so big that they fit over her boots. Only her dad, who died in 1989, will be missing from the group of family, friends and supporters known as the “Blair Bunch.” They’ll all be there laughing, crying, yelling and screaming when Bonnie makes her bid to bring home the gold one, or two – maybe even three – more times.
