RICHMOND, British Columbia — Scores of people walked by as he sat casually on an air duct in the lobby with the floor-to-ceiling windows Tuesday afternoon — exactly 30 years to the day that he became the Olympic lodestar — and not a single person glanced his way.
Eric Heiden always said he didn’t skate to be famous, but now we’re wondering whether this obscurity — even in this building filled with skate fans — is a result of his choice of small talk.
Because, face it, it’s a bit random for a Renaissance man: “Seriously, why are the Nets so bad?” he suddenly wanted to know. “I don’t follow it like I should, but I thought they had talent. ... ”
That’s a discussion for another time. But it did confirm an immediate first impression: This is just a Wisconsin guy of agreeable countenance, a salt-and-peppered 50-something who looks and talks like your family doctor wondering whether you’ve been working too hard lately.
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Because 30 years after he won those five gold medals at Lake Placid, the immortal Eric Heiden — in fact, a physician — is still less impressed with himself than most things going on around him.
He allowed himself just one, fleeting moment of self-recognition in the lobby of the Richmond Olympic Oval, where strangers kept staring past the man who won the 500-, 1,000-, 1,500-, 5,000-, and 10,000-meter speed skating events in those nine magical days in February 1980:
“I still wonder sometimes how I did it — I really do,” Heiden said matter-of-factly. “Being in medicine and understanding physiology, it’s rare for someone to compete at all those distances. But my coach (Jim Ochowicz) summed it up: I was a good 1,000-meter skater who had the ability to skate at 10,000. It was unusual to have that combination.”
That’s why nobody even attempts to do what Heiden did. But he doesn’t feel superior to those who follow him — he just tries to heal and counsel them, as the team physician for the U.S. speedskating team — and he never sounds like Sandy or Whitey grousing about why these mollycoddled pitchers today can’t go nine.
“But the sport has changed since I competed,” Heiden explained. “In the past, you had to do all the races. Now, in a World Cup format, a skater can be very successful at one or two. When I skated, on
most weekends you were going all five distances — that was just the norm.”
It was not the norm, however, to win all five at an Olympics. The ’80 Games may be known for Miracle on Ice, but Heiden’s feat was the moon shot.
Some might call him the gold standard, but that’s a misfire: Standards are supposed to be attained once in a while.
Heiden’s achievement will never be duplicated, period.
Not with this much modesty, anyway:
“Looking back, I was lucky I came from a country where there wasn’t a lot of heritage in the sport,” said Heiden, who gave up hockey at 15. “So I didn’t have naysayers who said I couldn’t do what seems impossible now. Where we came from, it was possible.”
Put it this way: If someone even tried to skate all five distances, “I would think any coach would question that decision, and encourage them to focus on their strengths,” Heiden said.
He still loves the game. His favorite distance is the 1,000 “because it came so easy for me — even on a bad day, I could win.” But he thought that the 10,000 proved a man’s mettle, because “you had to pay your dues, train like crazy, and be a technically good skater.”
Is there anyone who can even attempt all five?
Sven Kramer of the Netherlands, perhaps?
“I’m a big fan,” Heiden said, “but he’s not fast enough in the shorter distances.”
Shani Davis, Chicago’s finest?
“I think he has a lot of the same physiology I had, he’s long and lean,” Heiden said. “He’s a good middle-distance skater that has the ability to be competitive at shorter distances. And with some training on longer distance he can be competitive.”
But it’s moot.
No one is crazy enough to try what Heiden did — and we might add that he did it in an outdoor rink, without today’s clap skates.
“That’s like going from a three-speed bike to a 10-speed bike,” said Heiden, married with two school-aged kids. “I would have loved to have a chance to give clap skates a shot, but by then the sport had passed me by.”
His Olympic career ended after 1980, but at 52, he keeps adding to his résumé. This, lest you forget, was one of the first crossover athletes — a U.S. cycling champ, and a professional hockey player in a Scandinavian league. And since the early 90s, an orthopedic surgeon.
That interest in the Nets? It’s mostly professional: Heiden was the Sacramento Kings’ team doctor for 10 years.
“I still say the athletes with the best skills are NBA players,” he said, “because it’s a very unusual combination to have someone so tall to be so coordinated. But when you compare athletes, it depends on what you’re looking for. If it’s aerobic ability, it’s cyclists. For strength, endurance and coordination? I’d have to pick a hockey player.”
It’s rare that you show such a bias, we told him.
“Yeah, I love hockey. It’s still my favorite sport,” he said. “I lacked the eye-hand coordination to be great at it, though.”
The most dominant athlete in American Olympic history smiled. A memory from one of his myriad careers suddenly returned to him.
“I wasn’t a goal-scorer,” Doc Heiden explained. “But if I made a mistake, I was always pretty good at chasing a guy down and getting the puck back.”
Dave D'Alessandro may be reached at ddalessandro@starledger.com
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