Still Next in Line

Chad Hedrick, an inline skater who turned to the ice only four years ago, won the men’s 5,000-meter speedskating race Saturday, giving the U.S. its first gold medal of the 2006 Winter Olympics.

For Hedrick, that’s one down, four to go.

Bidding to equal the record five gold medals that Eric Heiden won in speedskating at the 1980 Lake Placid Games, Hedrick, 28, of Spring, Texas, near Houston, is a self-described “really confident person” and said afterward, “I didn’t come here to win one gold medal. You’re going to see my face a lot more.”

Hedrick finished in 6 minutes 14.68 seconds, only two-hundredths of a second off the Olympic record and almost two seconds -- a virtual eternity in speedskating -- ahead of Sven Kramer of the Netherlands, at 6:16.40. Only last November, Kramer had set the world record in the event, 6:08.78.

“The ice was really slow today,” Hedrick said.

Enrico Fabris of Italy was third, finishing strong at 6:18.25, just ahead of another Dutch skater, Carl Verheijen, at 6:18.84. Fabris’ bronze was Italy’s first medal in long-track speedskating.

Four years ago, Fabris finished 16th in the 5,000 at the Salt Lake City Games. Saturday, he skated nearly 12 seconds faster.

Through his last lap, he was urged on by flag-waving, horn-blowing fans. When his time flashed on the scoreboard, he raised his hands in Rocky Balboa-like triumph.

“This means a lot of things ... for my heart,” Fabris said.

As Fabris was being mobbed by friends, fans and camera crews, Hedrick was elsewhere at the Oval Lingotto, meeting quietly with First Lady Laura Bush, who had watched the race with Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the head of the 2002 Games, and others -- escorted there to the meeting by Heiden.

Hedrick’s father, Paul, sporting a black cowboy hat, was there too, and said he’d told the first lady, “We’re Bush people.” To which, Paul Hedrick said, Mrs. Bush replied, “We’re Chad Hedrick people.”

After coming downstairs to meet with a knot of reporters, the first lady called the race a “huge thrill,” adding, “I hope he does great in every single one.”

Hedrick said he would like to “sort of downplay” five-medal comparisons to Heiden, now a U.S. team doctor. But Hedrick also said, having won one, that the “next four races are going to be a lot easier than this one.”

Hedrick’s next race probably will be his toughest gold-medal challenge. Called the team pursuit, it’s a three-skater, 3,200-meter event making its Olympic debut. Preliminaries are set for Wednesday.

KC Boutiette, 35, of Salt Lake City, one of the first inline skaters to switch to speedskating, appearing here in his fourth Olympics and a probable member of the pursuit team, finished 19th Saturday in 6:37.29.

Shani Davis, 23, of Chicago, the 1,000-meter world-record holder, finished seventh in 6:23.08, then suggested that he was unlikely to skate in the pursuit. With him, the U.S. stands a “really, really good chance,” Hedrick said. Without him: “We’re gonna go and do our best.”

Hedrick will skate his next individual race next Saturday, the 1,000. Were he to win “only” three medals here, he would nonetheless become only the third U.S. athlete to win three or more medals at a single Winter Games -- along with Heiden and another speedskater, Sheila Young, who won three in 1976.

As a kid growing up near Houston, Hedrick says, Heiden was the only speedskater he’d heard of. Paul and Wanda Hedrick run a number of roller-skating rinks and their baby boy grew up on skates.

Younger sister Natalie, 23, a senior at Texas A&M;, said her big brother was really “caring and generous” in “everyday life,” but, on skates, has always been competitive and driven to win.

Chad Hedrick is considered among the greatest inline skaters in history -- winner of at least one world championship gold medal every year from 1995 to 2002. Among his rivals was Derek Parra, who also turned to speedskating and won gold and silver medals at Salt Lake City.

In 2002, Hedrick was in Las Vegas for an inline event. Sitting at a blackjack table, he looked up and saw Parra win the 1,500. Right then and there, Hedrick decided his ice time had come too.

“As an inline skater, I was world champion for almost 10 years and I’d go home to Houston and tell people what I did and nobody ever knew what I was talking about,” he said Saturday.

Hedrick uses a revolutionary technique called the “double push.” Speedskaters traditionally push on one leg at a time. He, essentially, pushes with both.

Parra, a good friend, calls Hedrick “the Exception,” in part because Hedrick relies on an unorthodox training regimen -- a lot of jumping exercises, for instance, instead of riding a bike, a speedskating staple.

In the stands Saturday, a few rows over from Bush, sat dozens of Hedrick supporters in red sweatshirts embossed with a white outline of the state of Texas on which had been printed, in black, “The Exception.”

About 90 minutes before Saturday’s race, Hedrick climbed up there, into all those red sweatshirts in the stands, where he posed for pictures and got some hugs -- just to settle down. A few minutes before that, the “really confident person” had broken into tears, the import of his first race at the Olympics and “all the sweat and all the sacrifice I put into my sport” welling up, he said.

Hedrick said later that team psychologist Keith Henschen had told him, “Tears are a good thing. Get them out now.”

Thus focused, and once again a “really confident person,” Hedrick stepped onto the ice and soon opened a commanding lead over Bob de Jong of the Netherlands. At one point, they were at nearly opposite ends of the straightaway.

Hedrick said his grandmother, Geraldine Hedrick, had died on Feb. 11, 1993 -- 13 years ago to the day. As he tired ever so slightly in the final laps, he said, he thought of her.

“Someone was looking down on me today, so we made it really special,” he said. “I’m really proud.”