TRIPLE TRIUMPH
A day of jubilation for Canada. Gold, silver and bronze! Coverage starts on
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA— Ted-Jan Bloemen cried. The great Sven Kramer was still skating, dying lap by lap in the biggest race of his peerless career, and Bloemen covered his face, his eyes wide and disbelieving, his shoulders beginning to shake, because he knew he had won the race of his life. In the 10,000 metres, the greatest race in long-track speedskating, for his adopted country of Canada, Ted-Jan Bloemen had won Olympic gold.
In the stands, Marlinde Bloemen cried. Security guards had been called because she and the rest of Bloemen’s family were too loud during his beautiful, almost perfect race, but that wasn’t it. She was overjoyed to see her husband achieving his lifelong dream, and it filled her heart to bursting. But that wasn’t it, either.
So many things collide at an Olympics, and this was one place they did. Kramer had beaten Bloemen four days earlier in the 5,000. Bloemen skated a bad race: he started too hot, lost focus and speed, and still dragged himself to a silver by millimetres. He had broken Kramer’s world records in the 5,000 and 10,000 after moving from the Netherlands to Canada, and silver felt like at least a partial vindication. Bloemen never felt at home in the powerhouse Dutch program, and never gave himself fully to the sport. In Canada, he felt embraced, loved.
And here at the pinnacle, Bloemen was following Dutch speedskater and 2014 Olympic champion Jorrit Bergsma, who had just broken his own Olympic record in his race. Bloemen started strong and found a rhythm, and skated a race so methodical it was almost mathematical; that Zen flow of a great skater, gliding and in perfect sync, delivering metronomic laps fuelled by the heart and legs and lungs. The slowest lap after the first one was 30.56. The four fastest were the final four, and the fastest, 29.81, was the last. Bloemen crossed the line and tore off his hood and sunglasses and spread his arms out, face to the sky.
“It was a hard race, (but) it was enough,” said Bloemen. “It was perfect.”
And Kramer followed, and people thought the big man would do it. He is considered the greatest long-track skater ever, but he famously lost the 10,000 in Vancouver in 2010 when his coach sent him into the wrong lane.
He lost the 10,000 to Bergsma in Sochi. This was the only race he has never won. Kramer said, “I think it’s not a secret that it’s really important to me.”
“This is probably the biggest sporting event in the Netherlands this year,” said Daniel de Ridder of NUSport, a Dutch sports giant.
“Everybody is in front of their television right now,” said his colleague, Mark Leene. “The roads will be empty, and in every office the TV will be on. And if Ted wins, that will be the story, that Ted completed the devastation of Sven Kramer, of course.”
After 4,000 metres Kramer was within 1.25 seconds of Bloemen. In the 5,000, Kramer started easy and came home like a demon. But now, he bled time. Then more. It was stunning. By the end Kramer was more than 20 seconds back, in sixth place. He said his technique had not felt right all season.
“I wasn’t good enough,” Kramer said. “I didn’t get in the flow right away, and it was a pretty tough race, pretty hard . . . Those guys were really, really fast, especially Ted did an amazing job. I was fast last year, but it doesn’t count anymore.”
“You could see his body language: he wasn’t skating to win. He felt defeated,” said Canadian coach Bart Schouten. “I think he knew after five, six, seven laps. I think he knew he wasn’t going to get it.
“I think it’s huge. I think he was the unbeatable guy, and Ted just beat him. It’s huge. I think, the king is dead, long live the king.” He added Kramer is still a great skater. But he had been defeated.
And as Kramer died, Bloemen sat down on the edge of the ice and put his hands over his face, and he wiped away the tears as the emotion washed through his body, wave after wave.
“Yeah, it’s really hard to put that moment into words,” said Bloemen. “It’s just a slow realization that you are becoming Olympic champion at that point. Imagine that feeling.
“I’m really grateful for all the people around me, and I’m a really happy person and I’ve been so for a long time. I’m really grateful for the team that I have around me, and the family that is here with me, and that’s how I feel: really proud, happy and grateful.”
And in the stands his wife cried, too. But it was not because her husband had achieved the dream that brought him from the Netherlands to Calgary four years ago, as won- derful as it was. During the 5,000 metres she had received a text from one of her best friends, a childhood friend. They had been friends since they were 6 years old, in a tiny Dutch village of maybe 1,000 people. Her friend had been trying to conceive for four years, and she was 38 weeks pregnant when her uterus ruptured. She texted Marlinde with the bad news.
“The baby went all wrong, and the baby died,” said Marlinde, her eyes wet. “Five days. And she just texted me, to congratulate me. And that’s why I’m so emotional right now. And she texted me to congratulate me and Ted.”
She stopped for a moment. Deep breath.
“And I know it’s a medal, and I know it’s worth a lot. But it’s also worth nothing, you know. It’s worth nothing if . . . somebody’s not happy, or something’s not right. And I know I’m so happy for Ted, but if I could I would trade this medal in for just one extra day for them with their baby.”
Marlinde had been pessimistic entering the race. Usually, when Ted was in a big race, he would not contact her for the days before, locked in a training bubble. That was the deal. But here, he was calling every day.
“So I was like, ‘Is he focused enough?’” she says. “He was so secure about himself. Every day to check with me, to see if I was doing OK.” She broke down again. “And he also said after his 5K, the pressure is off, and I can just enjoy what I’m doing. And of course when the pressure is off . . . Sport is worth a lot, and for Ted of course it’s worth a lot, but even the last few days, I think because he was so relaxed, because he had so much confidence, he was able to . . . ”
Doctors had to remove her friend’s uterus; her friend will never bear a child. A third childhood friend of both women was in Bali, and she and Marlinde texted back and forth, helpless.
“And we are both, we cannot do anything,” Marlinde said. “Even if we were there, we could not do anything. But I went to a temple here, and I don’t believe in God, I believe in myself, but I actually sat there and prayed for the baby, and I sent it to her. I don’t even know which god belongs to this temple. But it’s all I can do.”
Her friend texted her after the race: it read, in Dutch, “I’ve seen Ted do something else, and he got it!” It had emojis of happy faces and hearts. Marlinde stared at the text, its emojis like little balloons, and stared out onto the ice, tears in her eyes.
It all collided on this night in Korea. Later, the last bus of the night waited outside the building to take the athletes back to the village. The Italian bronze medallist got on. Some Dutch coaches. Ted’s gear was loaded on. But he never appeared, and the bus pulled away in the night. He must have been with his family.