Word: skater
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...President Carter phoned Coach Herb Brooks to say: "We were trying to do business, and nobody could. We were watching TV 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...
...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...
...When the skaters warmed up for the 10,000-meter race that would be Heiden's chance for a fifth gold medal, the arena was jammed with spectators. Along Main Street, fans who had not been able to get tickets climbed homemade ladders in order to peer over the fencing. Heiden stayed in perfect form. "He's not a beauty skater, he's a strength skater," says Leah Poulos Mueller, an American speed skater who won silvers in the women's 500- and 1,000-meter races. Yet in the end Heiden's strength...
...They must, in some way, gain their support from it, either as students in Western countries or as "soldiers" in Eastern ones. And when the most successful of these athletes can look forward to special rewards after their playing days are over, like the Kellogg's advertising contract awaiting skater Eric Heiden, then they are pros in all but name. This cannot be a reason to save the Games either...