Blair Wins Second Gold by a Skate : Speedskating: She beats Ye by .02 seconds to become most decorated U.S. woman in Winter Olympics history.

As she glided slowly down the backstretch, still catching her breath and soothing the burning muscles in her legs after her race, Bonnie Blair refused to look at the clock when the last two speedskaters who had a chance to beat her, China’s Ye Qiaobo and Germany’s Monique Garbrecht, pursued each other around the track.

Blair seemed more interested in their duel than in their pace, but, for virtually everyone else at the Olympic Oval on Friday, the real drama was in their race against the clock and the time of 1:21.90 that the heavily favored American from Champaign, Ill., had already posted in the 1,000 meters.

Neither Ye nor Garbrecht appeared as if she would challenge Blair through the first 600 meters, but, on the final lap of the 400-meter oval, the Chinese woman found stamina, strength and speed.

When she crossed the finish line, she was surrounded by so many officials that she could not see the clock. “Everything was going around so fast,” she said later. She could not understand a word that anyone said to her until she heard a Chinese voice cry out, “You’re first, you’re first.”

What was she to think, except that she had won? Then she saw the clock, and doubled over in anguish.

It read: 1:21.92.

She had finished two-hundredths of a second behind Blair. If they had been paired against each other and skated those same times, they would have been separated by less than 10 inches.

It was by that margin that Blair, 27, became the most decorated woman ever for the United States in the Winter Olympics. Only one other U.S. woman has won more than one gold medal in the Winter Olympics. Andrea Mead Lawrence won two in Alpine skiing in 1952. Blair has three, including the two she won in the 500 meters--one four years ago at Calgary, which she also won by .02, and the other five days ago on this oval.

Her fourth medal--she also won a bronze in the 1,000 in 1988--ties her among U.S. women in the Winter Olympics with speedskater Dianne Holum, who won one gold, two silvers and a bronze in 1968 and 1972. The only Winter Olympics athlete, man or woman, who has won more medals for the United States is speedskater Eric Heiden, who won five golds in 1980.

Holum, who now coaches junior speedskaters in Milwaukee, watched Friday’s race, then recalled a conversation she had with Blair after her eighth-place finish in the 500 meters in 1984 at Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

“I told her that she could beat the East Germans and skate (the 500) under 40 seconds,” Holum said. “She hesitated a little, but I could tell she was absorbing it. Bonnie’s not one to boast, but I could tell she was thinking, ‘I can do that. Yes, I’m going to do that.’ ”

Blair has done that and more, and now it is the former East Germans, who have dominated women’s speedskating for a decade, who speak about her in wonderment. “She has again proved that, for the Olympic Games, she is absolutely the best,” said Garbrecht, who finished third Friday in 1:22.10.

If Blair still had critics after the 1988 Winter Olympics, it was because she won her two medals there on an indoor track, where her relatively small size--5 feet 5, 130 pounds--does not adversely affect her because there is no wind. But she won here outdoors, and on a track that is far from perfect.

“She’s proved she’s one of the greatest sprinters ever,” Holum said.

But despite all the acclaim, Blair seemed subdued after giving the United States its third gold medal of these Games, one more than it won during the entire 16 days at Calgary.

“Relieved,” she said when asked to describe her reaction to the victory.

These have been difficult days for her, so filled with pressure that she spent only one hour this week with the 44 family members and friends--”the Blair Bunch”--who traveled here from the United States to see her. Unlike four years ago, she was expected to win the 500 and the 1,000. In neither event has she been defeated on the World Cup circuit this winter. But even in Wednesday’s 1,500, not one of her specialties, she felt an obligation to at least contend for a medal.

Because of his strategy in that race, her coach, Peter Mueller, deserves an assist for the gold medal Friday. Fearing that she might burn herself out in the 1,500, he told her beforehand that he would give her the signal to coast if he believed she had no chance to win a medal. With 400 meters remaining, she got the signal. She finished an embarrassing 21st, but the energy she saved probably was worth at least two-hundredths of a second.

“I don’t think it was the best 1,000 I’ve skated this year, but it was a halfway decent race,” she said. “I knew I gave it all I had. I was satisfied. If it happened to stand up, I knew I would be even more satisfied.”

For the second time in five days, Ye was disappointed.

After the International Skating Union suspended her for 18 months the week before the 1988 Winter Olympics opened because she tested positive for an anabolic steroid, which she said was administered to her by a Chinese team doctor without her knowledge, she almost retired. She said that she changed her mind when a friend told her: “You are like a flower bud that has not opened. If you quit, you will never open.”

Ye, 28, hoped to win a gold medal here and dedicate it to her friend. But she finished second to Blair by .18 in the 500, a race she might have won if not for a near-collision in a crossover that forced her to break her stride. Her coach protested, but it was disallowed by the referee. Ye said that she believed she lost Friday’s race on her start, the weakest part of her race.

“I somehow have a feeling of regret because I dreamed of winning,” she said.

She will return to her home in northern China, where she will try to improve her technique by studying training films, the ones starring Bonnie Blair.