Word: jansen
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...anxious and grieving Jansen on the starting line that evening. At the outset he jumped the gun. To avoid a repeat and disqualification, he held back for a crucial moment at the second gun, then bore down to make up for lost time. He went down suddenly in the first turn, clipping Japanese Skater Yasushi Kuroiwa and slamming into the sideboard. Looking back, he said that he might have been pushing too hard. It seemed as likely though that emotional pressure had made a difficult curve impossible...
...meters short of the finish, it was even more stunning, as if he had been forced down by sorrow alone. Watching from the gallery, Brother Mike, 24, had just assured a sister: "Dan's made it through the toughest turns. He's fine now." At the 600-meter mark, Jansen was .31 sec. faster than any of the competition. Then his right skate "caught an edge" -- hit the ice on the side instead of the bottom of the blade -- sending him to his hands and knees and into a wall. For a moment he sat on the ice, unbelieving, until...
...scene brought to mind heartbreaking falls of American Olympic track stars: Jim Ryun tumbling at Munich, Mary Decker's astonished spill in Los Angeles. Jansen's mother Gerry, who had seen the race on TV, spoke for the millions who watched at home and in Calgary, where a cheering crowd fell into shocked silence: "I think we were all just kind of numb." Jansen's spills brought down much of the U.S. hope for a men's speed-skating medal. The team had gone to Calgary seeing a chance to replay some of 1980, when Eric Heiden took all five...
Meanwhile the competition has been reaching dizzying new speeds. In Sunday's race, 27 skaters broke Heiden's old record. After Jansen, the best U.S. hope for a medal had been Sprinter Nick Thometz. But following months of battling a low blood-platelet count and a recent bout of the flu, he finished eighth in the 500 and 18th in the 1,000. That race went to the Soviet Union's Nikolai Guliaev in 1:13.03. The silver went to East Germany's Jens-Uwe Mey, already winner of the 500 with a 36.45 record. Finally on Saturday...
...before, Jansen had flown home by private jet to attend his sister's funeral. "We hugged and we cried," said Mrs. Jansen. "My daughter's death has now become more of a reality to him." Later that day Jansen visited his sister's husband and her three young children. He gave them his Olympic participant's medal. At home the postman keeps bringing carts of mail full of sympathy and admiration. Jansen may have fallen on the ice, but the world would reach out if it could to lift...