Word: heiden
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...meters is Heiden's weakest event. Five days before the Olympics opened, he lost the first heat of the world sprint championships to U.S. Teammate Dan Immerfall, an upset that left Immerfall mildly dazzled and Heiden, oddly enough, relieved. "The defeat took some of the pressure off," said Heiden. "I could relax a little...
...clock. The pairings for speed skating are a matter of pure chance. For the 500 meters last week, the draw for the inner lane was the Soviets' Kulikov, the current world record holder in the event and the gold medal winner in 1976. For the outer lane: Eric Heiden...
...When Heiden skated onto the ice, the crowd chanted rhythmically, "Eric! E-ric!" Heiden and Kulikov stripped down to their sleek, skintight uniforms. Their hair was tucked into constricting hoods that improve their aerodynamics but, says Heiden, make it hard to breathe in any position other than a skater's crouch...
...Then the race was off cleanly: it amounted to a little more than half a minute of intense windmilling energy, an event of amazingly compacted skill. Speed skating is a contained, glyptic art, etching heat applied to ice. Kulikov whipped through the first 100 meters .05 seconds faster than Heiden. Then the Soviet slipped for an instant on the first turn, stuck out a hand, regained his balance and held his lead into the backstretch. The two men switched lanes in the backstretch, as prescribed, but Heiden was still behind going into the final turn. He began to accelerate...
...American came out of the turn in a dead heat with Kulikov. Heiden's powerful, heavily muscled legs chopped into the ice and his strokes sent up rooster tails of shavings. There was no such trail of glittering ice in Kulikov's wake. Heiden pulled away to win and establish a new Olympic record of 38:03 sec., 1.14 sec. faster than the mark achieved in Innsbruck by Kulikov. The Soviet, who finished in 38.37, had to settle for the silver. Heiden said later that he felt almost as though he had been fired out of a slingshot...