Word: heiden
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Skating Coach Sten Stenson: "In Norway, we say that if you can be good in the 5,000 and 10,000, you can't do the 500. But Eric can do it. We have no idea how to train to take him. We just hope he retires." "What Heiden is doing," said U.S. Marathon Star Bill Rodgers as Eric's medals piled up, "is comparable to a guy winning everything from the 400 meters to the 10,000 meters in track. There may be guys who can do 5,000 and 10,000 meters, but to do this...
...with one eye and Iran and the economy with the other." But even the thrilling hockey victory could not overshadow the accomplishments of a young and unassuming speed skater from the Midwest. Perhaps the most vivid single image of the 1980 Winter Games was the sight of Eric Heiden's heroically muscled thighs molded in a skating skin of gold as he stroked his way to five Olympic golds, five Olympic records and one world record. Nothing in Olympic history rivals that performance...
...chauvinists and chroniclers, the race for medals was hardly a race: the East Germans and Soviets, as usual, scooped up medals by the fistful. But thanks to Heiden and the hockey team, the U.S. did remarkably well: six golds, to nine for the East Germans and ten for the Soviets. On a per capita basis, however, the hands-down winner of the Lake Placid Games was tiny Liechtenstein (pop. 24,000); the brother-and-sister skiing act of Andreas and Hanni Wenzel whisked to two golds and two silvers...
...Heiden is certainly one of the best-conditioned athletes in the world. Sometimes he bicycles 100 miles a day to build endurance, bending low over the handlebars and drilling his body to keep that horrific skater's crouch. He lifts weights, he duck-walks for miles, he rollerskates, he spends hours each week sliding back and forth in stocking feet across a 10-ft. formica-covered slideboard, an exercise that mimics the speed skater's side-to-side stroking of the ice. After eight years of such routines, Heiden's thighs are oak thick in circumference...
Even with such conditioning, the speed skater endures considerable pain. Before a 10,000-meter race has ended, Heiden says with feeling, "you think you'd give your life to be able to stand up. Your back is killing you so much you'd do anything to get out of that crouch." Each race has distinctive elements of suffering. The 1,500-meter, for example: "When it's over, you cough up fluid from your lungs for a couple of days afterward. The 1,500-meter hack, we call it. I like the 1,500-meter...