WINTER OLYMPICS : It Takes a Flaim to Start U.S. Fire : Speed Skaters Get Some Consolation in Silver Medal
Eric Flaim was the hottest thing on ice for just about six minutes, which is how long he held a world record.
He held a silver medal a short while later. Then it hung from his neck, an appropriate place, considering Flaim had saved everyone else’s on the team.
The fire in the U.S. speed skating team had long since been doused. They were going nowhere slowly, all the way back to 1980, the last time the U.S. team won a medal.
How long did Flaim burn? In a single race that lasted less than two minutes, he lasted long enough to skate a world-record time in the 1,500-meter Olympic speed skating event Saturday night. And even though the record didn’t hold up for very long, Flaim may have revived the hard-luck U.S. team with the kind of race that even his idol with the same first name found awesome to behold.
“I didn’t see one mistake in his race,” said Eric Heiden, a five-time gold medalist. “He put together a perfect race. In two weeks, he’s going to win the world championships. If he skates like he did tonight, there’s nobody who can beat him.”
Only one skater beat him Saturday night before a loud and enthusiastic sellout crowd at the Olympic Oval, which may have come to say goodby to national hero Gaetan Boucher, but which also may have witnessed the emergence of a new North American star.
Andre Hoffmann of East Germany, skating two pairs after Flaim, won the gold medal, but he had to beat Flaim by skating a world-record time.
And he did.
Hoffmann edged Flaim by six-hundredths of a second, 1:53.06 to 1:52.12.
Flaim skated in the first pair, which is tough enough, but when he false-started at the gun, his task grew even more difficult. If Flaim left too quickly, he would be disqualified. Instead, he left with the sound of the starter’s gun still reverberating in his ears.
No one had ever skated a faster 1,500-meter race. No one until Hoffmann.
“There was nothing I could do,” Flaim said. “I thought, ‘Geez, he looks awfully strong.’ ”
Hoffmann skated the race of his life, and Flaim said he certainly deserved the gold medal, although Flaim held out a little hope that his time might actually hold up.
“Skating in the first pair, it’s just like sitting on pins and needles, watching everybody else after you,” Flaim said.
“I thought all along I could get a medal. It didn’t matter what color to me. I’ll tell you, it was a great feeling watching that flag go up. It’s just a shame they couldn’t play the national anthem.”
Maybe Flaim can hear it some time soon. When you are 20 years old such as Flaim and skate like he has done in the Olympics, there seems to be a certain warm glow surrounding his future.
In his two previous races, the 1,000 meters and the 5,000 meters, Flaim finished fourth, and while they were unexpectedly high finishes and good ones as well, they still were not what Flaim had dreamed about when he was a teen-ager growing up in Pembroke, Mass.
“A lot of people don’t realize how long I’ve trained for this,” Flaim said.
As an 11-year-old junior hockey player in Pembroke, a Boston bedroom community on the way to Cape Cod, 5-foot 5-inch Flaim decided he wasn’t big enough to get crashed into the boards. He thought he’d rather go it alone.
“When I was sitting on the bench in hockey, I thought, ‘Boy, I’d rather be skating, do it by myself.’ Then when I saw Heiden, I was blown away.
“He was just an incredible athlete, to be so versatile was just inspirational to me.”
Flaim wore his hockey skates the first time he tried speed skating. Now, he’s trying to fill Heiden’s shoes.
“One of the things about speed skating, you don’t have to be a big guy to participate or to do well,” Heiden said. “And I think hockey helped him, especially in the tight corners where you learn to take corners and to recover.
“I’ll tell you, a guy like him is a fighter. He’s helped the whole American team in general with what he’s done, but for Eric Flaim, he’s crossed over a hurdle, a great, big mental hurdle.
“Now, he’s one of the best in the world.”
Sponsored by the Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in Boston, Flaim has always been a source of joy to them.
Flaim is Italian, the son of Enrico Flaim. Now, maybe he is going to be one of America’s favorite sons, too.
Speed Skating Notes
Eric Heiden, when told that Eric Flaim had once chosen speed skating over hockey, said: “If he wants to make any money, he should have stayed with hockey.” . . . Michael Hadschieff of Austria won the bronze medal with a time of 1:52.31. . . . U.S. skater Mark Greenwald was 11th, and teammate John Baskfield was 20th. . . . The first four finishers all broke the world record and 16 of the 39 skaters broke Heiden’s Olympic record of 1:55.44, which he set in 1980 at Lake Placid, N.Y.. . . . Gaetan Boucher, the 1984 1,500-meter gold medalist, finished in ninth place in what is probably his last race. Boucher said he would retire after the Olympics. . . . Flaim wore a different uniform than when he skated in the 1,000 meters Thursday night. It was the same uniform he wore when he won the 1,000-meter race at the World Sprint Championships two weeks ago. “It’s my lucky skin (suit),” Flaim said. “I’ve got a lot of fast times built in.” . . . Flaim skates again today in the 10,000-meter race, the last of the men’s speed skating events, but he is not among the favorites.