It’s Not Just a Second

The wrong Dutchman won the men’s 5,000-meter speedskating race here Saturday at the Winter Olympics, but that wasn’t half as surprising as who finished second.

That was Derek Parra up on the podium, a silver medal dangling from his neck. Derek Parra, the Mexican American kid from San Bernardino--well, he’s not a kid anymore, he’s a month shy of 32 and is growing a nice little tonsure--who turned to ice skating only because he realized seven years ago that inline roller skating would not be an Olympic sport in his competitive lifetime. And, darn, he wanted a medal.

Now he has one. A Latino from sunny Southern California has a Winter Games medal, same as Jochem Uytdehaage, the winning skater from the Netherlands, and Jens Boden of Germany, who took the bronze. And in an afternoon of upsets, those guys were as surprised with their finishes as Parra was with his.

It took a world-record time of 6 minutes 14.66 seconds by Uytdehaage to knock Parra, who had himself skated a world-record time, out of the gold medal. And although Parra had seriously planned to win a medal, this was not the race he figured to get it.

“We decided my best race would be the 1,500 [Feb. 19], so my wife Tiffany stayed home [at her mother’s house in Orlando, Fla.] with our [baby] daughter Mia,” Parra said, ruefully. “When I called her, she said she’d been watching on television and was jumping up and down on the couch. She said she jumped a little higher every lap. That must have been funny.”

Went right along with the rest of the race, a funny one if every there was one.

Dutch skaters have dominated the distance races since before the last Winter Games at Nagano, where Hollanders Gianni Romme and Rintje Ritsma finished 1-2 in the 5,000, ahead of expatriate Dutchman Bart Veldkamp, skating for Belgium. There were plenty predicting a Dutch sweep here.

Then Romme, the defending Olympic champion and last season’s World Cup champion, failed to qualify for the 5,000, finishing fifth in the Dutch trials. That still left Carl Verheijen and Bob de Jong, veteran skaters and winners, not to mention Uytdehaage, whom almost no one did. Everyone was quite sure that on the fast ice of the Utah Olympic Oval, the Dutch would clean up, with records falling right and left.

Then the racing began, and everything changed. Nobody went very fast. American KC Boutiette, skating in the second pair, surprisingly, set a U.S. record, but it was well off the Olympic and world records. When Boden, skating against Veldkamp in the fifth pair, came out of nowhere with a 6:21.73, that went up as an Olympic record, although it was about three seconds shy of the world mark.

“I was incredibly happy,” the young German said, “and very surprised. But I was sure my Dutch colleagues would come in before me.”

For nearly an hour, though, Boden’s name stayed first on the leaderboard--until Parra, skating on newly resurfaced ice in the first pair of the supposedly fast group, knocked him off with a world mark of 6:17.98, more than 15 seconds faster than his previous best. Had he imagined such a time?

“Not by me,” he quipped. “By four or five other skaters. And I’m sure when Jochem saw my time, he said, ‘I can beat that. I beat him all the time.’ I have to say, though, that was the best 5k of my life.”

And in posting his fast time, Parra blew by his skating partner, Canadian Dustin Molicki, a legitimate medal threat. And then, the others stepped up, fired and missed. Verheijen skated a mediocre 6:24.71. Russian Vadim Sayutin and Norwegian Stian Bjorge fared poorly.

Finally, only two pairs stood between Parra and a gold medal. In one of them, though, was Uytdehaage, who quickly settled that matter. It was obvious at the halfway mark of his race that, unless he fell, he would beat Parra’s time. He didn’t fall, and he beat Parra by more than three seconds.

Which brought up De Jong, but he and pair partner Toshihiko Itokawa of Japan skated poorly, leaving a tearful Uytdehaage clasping his hands and gazing skyward.

“I was a little bit emotional,” he said. “It overcomes you.... It’s amazing I’m up here. It’s amazing that it’s the three of us on the podium.”

No less amazing to Parra.

“Total surprise,” he said. “Like Jochem said, the three of us up here when there were so many good skaters in this race. I was shocked by the times of the others. I was shocked when [Verheijen] didn’t smash my time.

“I was pretty inspired by KC, and then seeing the other times, I just got more confident, thinking, ‘I can do that. I can do that.’”

And so he did it, a Latino winning Winter gold.

“This is a great thing to help Hispanics reach for their goals,” he said. “I’m going back to my elementary school with my medal and telling the kids, ‘Reach high!’”

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A Smashing Event

The world record in men’s 5,000-meter speedskating has been broken several times the last three Olympics, including twice Saturday:

1994 Lillehammer

Existing record: 6:35.53 by Johann Koss of Norway

Broken by: Koss (6:34.96)

1998 Nagano

Existing record: 6:30.63 by Gianni Romme of the Netherlands

Broken by: Bart Veldkamp of Belgium (6:28.31)

Broken by: Rintje Ritsma of the Netherlands (6:28.24)

Broken by: Romme (6:22.20)

2002 Salt Lake City

Existing record: 6:18.72 by Romme

Broken by: Derek Parra of the U.S. (6:17.98)

Broken by: Jochem Uytdehaage of the Netherlands (6:14.66)