Speedskater Parra Tries to Complete Comeback

Derek Parra was ready for the rest of his life to begin, eager to become a full-time husband and father and to share his belief that no barrier is too high, no dream impossible. For proof, he had only to display the two Olympic speedskating medals he’d won at Salt Lake City.

But the San Bernardino native, a former inline skater and 1988 graduate of Eisenhower Rialto High, found something after the happily ever after:

A comeback.

Now 35, Parra will try to make his third Olympic team when the U.S. long-track speedskating championships begin today at the Olympic Oval in Kearns, Utah. But his path has been bumpier than his journey to Salt Lake City, fraught with physical and skate problems that have pushed him well down the list of World Cup competitors.

He has also been preoccupied with a personal situation, the nature of which he won’t disclose, saying only that he had been depressed, had lost weight and had sought therapy.

“I’m trying to take the high road. I deal with it every day,” he said. “I thought about talking to the media, but I don’t know what good would come out of it.”

Add his wife’s decision to leave their home in Salt Lake City and return to Florida with their 4-year-old daughter, Mia, because he spent so much time training and working, and Parra sometimes wonders whether he is simply skating in circles.

“I shouldn’t say I regret it, but circumstances have changed and it’s difficult,” he said during a recent conference call with reporters. “I’m trying to take each day at a time.”

A stocky 5 feet 4 and 140 pounds in a sport that has traditionally favored long-limbed athletes, Parra became one of the faces of the Salt Lake City Games when he won a silver medal in the 5,000-meter race and set a world record in winning the 1,500.

A classic success story as the first Mexican American to win a Winter Olympics medal, he was in high demand as a product pitchman and motivational speaker. He appeared in Gap ads and endorsed a brand of spring water. He spoke to Fortune 500 executives. To junior high students.

And to CIA agents.

“The biggest shock was that people wanted to listen to what I have to say,” he said. “Before, I couldn’t get my mom to listen to what I had to say. Corporate America invited me to speak.

“To my friends I’m still Derek and to my little girl, I’m still Daddy.”

But he’s not the same, in spirit or performance.

Parra ranks 13th in the World Cup standings in the 1,500 and 32nd in the 1,000 and will need exceptional performances to win a Turin nomination this week.

The U.S. team has four spots each in the men’s 500, 1,000 and 1,500 and up to three each in the 5,000 and 10,000, but several skaters have qualified for those spots, based on their performances in last year’s World Single Distance championship and this fall’s World Cup races.

Joey Cheek and Casey FitzRandolph have qualified in the 500, Shani Davis, Cheek and FitzRandolph in the 1,000, and Davis and Chad Hedrick in the 1,500. Hedrick, Davis and KC Boutiette have qualified in the 5,000. The U.S. has 38 spots in the men’s and women’s races, including entries in the men’s and women’s team pursuit, but the team can take only 10 men and 10 women to Turin.

Parra most recently finished 16th in a B division 5,000-meter race and 15th in a 1,500 at the Turin Olympic rink. He is hopeful that he will earn a return trip in February and is banking on the knowledge that he resolved similar skate problems shortly before the Salt Lake City Games.

“I’m kind of getting my butt waxed out there, but I’m not feeling what I wanted to feel on my skates,” he said. “Realistically, right now it’s difficult to put forth the confidence that will get me on the podium.... I’ve got to get back on track and get that feeling again.”

Also this week, Chris Witty of West Allis, Wis., who trains in Salt Lake City, will vie for her fourth Winter Games berth and fifth Olympic nomination. Witty, who won gold in the 1,000 at Salt Lake City after winning a silver medal in the 1,000 and bronze in the 1,500 at Nagano in 1998, competed in the 500-meter cycling time trial at the Sydney Summer Games and finished fifth.

Jennifer Rodriguez of Miami, the bronze medalist at Salt Lake City in the women’s 1,000 and 1,500, will compete this week, despite having qualified for Turin nominations in the 500 and 1,000.