Norway’s Koss Finds the Cure : Speedskating: He wins 1,500-meter race after recovering from attack of pancreatitis.

Because both of his parents are doctors and he is a first-year medical student, Norwegian speedskater Johann Olav Koss knew exactly what to do nine days ago when awakened by an acute stomach pain. Go to the nearest hospital.

Because he was living in a small town in Germany while training for the Winter Olympics, that took him two hours. By the time he arrived at the hospital in Traunstein, he had developed pancreatitis.

But, fortunately for him, the gallstone that blocked the channel to the pancreas, causing the pain and inflammation, passed, and he was allowed to leave the hospital after only a 30-hour stay. Five hours after he checked out, he was training again.

One week later, on Sunday at the Olympic Oval, Koss, 23, won the gold medal in a 1,500-meter race in which the three fastest skaters finished within nine-hundredths of a second of each other.

The Netherlands’ Leo Visser, a KLM pilot who, naturally, is known as the Flying Dutchman, was the first of the three to skate and believed he would win when he saw his time of 1:54.90.

He knew that Koss, the World Cup champion in the 1,500 the last two years, had yet to skate, but Visser also knew that the Norwegian did not appear to have regained his form after his hospitalization during a seventh-place finish in the 5,000 Thursday.

When Koss crossed the finish line in 1:54.81, Visser cursed.

“I said some words I’d rather not repeat here,” he said. “They were not nice words.”

Then it was Koss’ turn to sweat, but he chose to do it in private. He hopped on a bicycle and rode to the house near the track that he is sharing with his teammates.

“I was too nervous to stay at the track,” said Koss, who had already seen the lead change three times before he skated.

One of his teammates, Adne Sondral, came close, but finished .04 seconds out of first place in 1:54.85.

Eric Flaim of Pembroke, Mass., considered one of the favorites after winning the silver medal in the 1,500 four years ago at Calgary, almost did not make it to the starting line because of food poisoning and tied for 24th. Brian Wanek of Milwaukee was 19th, the best U.S. finish.

Sondral was a surprise silver medalist because he has been inconsistent in the past. But, he explained, “To be any good, you have to have good and bad races. In Norway, we say, ‘No tree grows directly to the heavens.’ ”

After the race, he and Koss were visited by the King of Norway. The country won four medals Sunday, including two in Alpine skiing, and now has only two fewer medals than the Unified Team, which dominated the Winter Olympics when the Soviet Union still existed.