WINTER OLYMPICS : Speed Skating : A Treat for Dutch; Blair Pays the Price

Paying the price for a distance that wasn’t her style, Bonnie Blair’s last chance for a third Olympic medal caught a big chill when her legs went south and the race went Dutch.

Yvonne van Gennip of the Netherlands windmilled around the track of ice Saturday night at the Olympic Oval to win not only the gold medal in the women’s 1,500-meter speed skating race, but also admiration of the woman who came in second.

“She is in very great form,” Karin Kania said. “It is the form of her life.”

For Blair, it’s over. The United States’ gold and bronze medalist closed out what could be her final Olympics with a fourth-place finish behind East German teammates Kania and Andrea Ehrig.

Blair skated a distance three times longer than the 500-meter event in which she was able to sprint to the gold medal Monday night.

She kicked the back of her boot with her skate early in the race, which she said didn’t make much difference in her time because her legs had already begun to stay too long in one place.

“Once I got going, my legs were just too tired,” Blair said. “Not that I could have gotten a world record, but I could have skated faster.”

Blair’s time after 700 meters was ahead of van Gennip’s, but she could not continue at that pace.

“I tried,” Blair said.

Van Gennip didn’t get a world record either, but she did take her second gold medal in something of an upset. The 1,500-meters is supposed to belong to Kania, the world record holder and the 1984 champion at this distance.

However, Kania’s time of 2:00.82 was 14/100ths of a second slower than the winning time of 2:00.68 by van Gennip, who surpassed her personal best by almost four seconds. Blair’s fourth-place time was 2:04.02.

Kania, bothered by a sore throat since the 3,000-meter race Tuesday, cried after her race, which she said was her last in Olympic competition.

“Because Karin had some hard days before, I had a chance, I knew that,” van Gennip said.

A 23-year-old from Haarlem, the Netherlands, van Gennip stood silently on the victory stand as she received her gold medal while hundreds of her Dutch fans hoisted wooden shoes impaled on poles all the while singing loudly.

Van Gennip may have been moved, although she didn’t appear that way.

“I think I am not emotional here, but in my bed, I am emotional,” she said, a comment that broke up the press corps.

Van Gennip’s medal was the sixth for the Nethlerands. Two of them are gold. East Germany has 11 medals, two gold, but the women have produced only one gold and that is considered a major surprise.

“Maybe the (East Germans) did not skate up to their capabilities,” Blair said. “Maybe the other countries will see they’re not unbeatable, and that’s going to be good for everyone.”

Kania admitted that she was slightly disappointed with what she had accomplished.

“The aim was a little more, of course,” she said. “To win two gold medals. But I had a little bad luck when I didn’t need it. But this is sport. I can also be happy with three medals here.”

Kania dropped out of today’s 5,000-meter event, which means that she ended her career as the most decorated women’s figure skater of all time. Her bronze medal gave her eight medals in three Olympics.

“I can only be proud of that,” she said. “It is a good record for three Games.”

Blair expressed relief that her Olympic moment had passed. the United States’ only double-medalist was supposed to win the 500 and she did. She was supposed to win a medal in the 1,000 and she did that, too.

“I’ve got to be very satisfied, very happy with the results of all the races,” Blair said. “But I’ll admit that it’s a big relief to be finished because there’s just so much expected in the Olympics.

“Not everyone gets to win a medal,” she said. “I’m just one of the lucky ones.”

Blair said she does not know if she will compete in the 1992 Olympics at the age of 27, but there is something of which she is certain.

No way will Blair forget the moment she crossed the finish line in the 500-meter race, the night she won the gold medal. It was a race that took less than a minute to skate. And the memory?

“I think it will last a lifetime,” she said.