SPEEDSKATING : Blair Pushes Herself to Two Records

Since so few other speedskaters can beat her, Bonnie Blair found that to push herself to greater feats, she’d have to compete against herself.

“When you go to different tracks around the world . . . I try not necessarily to beat the track record, but my record,” said Blair, a three-time Olympic gold medalist. “This is something that I use and I look at basically every place I go.”

Blair set track records in the 500-meter and 1,000-meter sprints Saturday at the U.S. Olympic long-track trials, each time breaking the standard she had established at the Pettit National Ice Center. Her times of 39.76 seconds in the second staging of the 500 and of 1:20.86 in the first staging of the 1,000 strengthened her already firm hold on Olympic berths, which will be decided next weekend.

Dan Jansen also set track records with times of 36.30 in the 500, bettering his first-day showing by 0.12, and 1:13.59 in the 1,000, which was 1.1 seconds off the world record set by Kevin Scott of Canada. Despite having flu, he is in such good position that his coach, Peter Mueller, said Jansen might skip one of the two remaining 500-meter races scheduled next weekend in order to rest. Jansen is the world-record holder in the 500 at 35.92.

The 500 is staged four times, and each competitor’s slowest time is discarded. The other times are converted to points to determine the standings, and the top four finishers will make the Olympic team. The 1,000 is held three times, and the top two times will count toward point standings.

“Dan’s skating better every race he skates,” Mueller said. “We were satisfied with D.J.’s 500, even though he made a couple of mistakes. He’s been sick and he skated a 36.3, so think of what he could have done without a slip in the backstretch . . .

“His mistakes were nothing major, but that’s the difference between a 36.3 and a 36.1. That 36.3 would have been a world record six months ago. He’s at such a level that no one in the world could go out and do that.”

Blair was especially pleased with her stamina in the 1,000-meter race.

“I wanted to try and go under 1:21, so 1:20.8 was a real good, solid race for me,” she said. “I felt strong in that race. I actually felt I could have kept going, and I haven’t felt that way in that race for a while.”

Blair, who holds the world record in the 500 at 39.10 seconds, leads the women’s 500 standings with 79.68 points. She’s comfortably ahead of 1992 Olympian Michelle Kline of Circle Pines, Minn., who has 83.10; two-time Olympian Peggy Clasen of St. Paul, Minn., who has 83.21, and Kristen Talbot of Schuylerville, N.Y., who has 83.48 points.

Jansen leads the men’s 500-meter standings with 72.72 points. David Cruikshank of Northbrook, Ill., who was second to Jansen each day, is second with 74.85; Nathaniel Mills of Evanston, Ill., has 75.31 points, and David Besteman of Madison, Wis., has 75.39.