Hedrick Doesn’t Alter His Ego

Finally, for the Americans, a happy ending, a classy ending, an Olympic ending.

Jogging around the inside of the Oval Lingotto track after winning a silver medal in the 10,000 meters Friday, exhausted Chad Hedrick wearily waved his country’s flag.

The thousands of fans who had long ignored him suddenly began waving back.

There were cheers, and chants, and open arms, and then there was a song.

It was coming from the peppy Dutch band, Small Beer.

It was the U.S. national anthem.

How cool it was, listening to Hedrick being serenaded a week after being sauteed, the official U.S. Olympic irritant finally being embraced.

How neat it was, thinking that an Olympic experience could alter an unshakable athlete, mature a grown man, melt a cold skater.

Then, with the anthem refrain still hanging in the air, Hedrick opened his mouth again.

Oh say can you ... just shut up!

During his news conference, he bragged, dissed and dragged two classy Dutch skaters through the slush.

On the day he bade farewell to Games he dominated with a full set of medals -- gold, silver, bronze -- the most decorated American sadly proved again to be the tackiest American.

Despite the problems of those who didn’t win medals here, the U.S. Olympic officials’ biggest concern perhaps rests with one who did.

“Today, I can honestly say I went out there and left it all on the ice,” Hedrick said.

If only that were true.

The same coarse traits that Texan shows on the ice, he brings into the interview room, with differing results.

He said that by winning a medal, despite his weariness, he was the toughest man in the rink.

“My heart is bigger than everybody else out there,” he said.

He bragged about a strategy that allowed him to fool, and victimize, third-place Carl Verheijen in the final laps.

“I let him catch me ... as soon as he catches me, he’ll think he has me ... as soon as he catches me, I did a sprint,” he said.

He claimed again that his nasty public feud with teammate Shani Davis was not their responsibility.

“There was a boiling point you guys pushed on us,” he said.

And then, with a straight face, he said that during the last three weeks, he wouldn’t have changed a thing.

That meant he would have again refused to congratulate a winning teammate, would have again called that teammate a betrayer, and would have kept on talking trash.

“I wouldn’t do anything different,” he said. “I represented my country the best I can.”

The problem is, to the rest of the sporting world, he did.

The rest of the sporting world thinks America is no longer the land of milk and honey, but louts and braggarts. America is the home of competition without grace, victory without humility, triumph without tact.

And, not coincidentally, the home of Chad Hedrick.

Bob de Jong, the Dutch 10,000-meter champion, shrugged and said of Hedrick, “He says a lot ... he is American.”

Verheijen, the Dutch third-place finisher, also shrugged and said, “He has an attitude we’re not used to. He has an American style.”

Other athletes pout and whine and preen and pose, but it seems the Americans do it more publicly.

It seems every day they have been fussing and feuding, from snowboarders to speedskaters to Modanos.

Hedrick will end these Games as the cover boy for American success, but he will also end it as the prototype for American excess.

It’s too bad, because the dude can really skate.

His sprint ahead of Verheijen in the 22nd of the 25 laps Friday was praised by his coach, Bart Schouten, as the best move he’d ever seen in the sport.

“He took four or five strokes, looked back, looked Carl in the eye, then took off in the next corner like I’ve never seen,” said Schouten. “It was unbelievable.”

Sadly, more believable is that Hedrick couldn’t take credit for the move without dissing Verheijen, who was clearly offended when he appeared at a later news conference.

“I’m glad he was so worried about what I was thinking,” Verheijen said. “He lost the gold medal there. He waited for me, he slowed down, he gave up the gold medal.”

Verheijen was also offended by Hedrick’s claim that he had more heart than anyone.

“He doesn’t have the biggest heart today,” the Dutchman said. “The biggest heart belongs to Bob de Jong. He is the winner. He is the one with the big heart.”

After hearing Hedrick’s comments, De Jong was annoyed enough to put that heart on his sleeve.

“He says America rules, but today he cannot say America rules,” De Jong said. “Today, the Dutch rule.”

De Jong, a quiet sort, added that Hedrick “comes in with a new style. But today, the old style beats the new style.”

If only this new style would play as well in public as it does on the podium.

“I wasn’t going to lay down for anybody,” Hedrick said of Friday’s silver medal. “I was going to prove to everybody how big my heart is.”

Heart, not ego.

There is a difference, and here’s hoping Chad Hedrick can use the next four years to figure that out.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.