Heiden’s five gold medals still greatest feat in sports
Even after all these years, Eric Heiden still marvels at what he accomplished during those nine days in the tiny village of Lake Placid.
Five speedskating races, ranging from an allout sprint of barely more than a lap to a grueling marathon covering more than 6 miles around the oval.
Five gold medals. “As time goes by, it becomes more outstanding what I did in 1980,” Heiden said this week. “When I try to equate it to other sports, it’s just unheard of.”
There’s not a hint of self-aggrandizing in his voice during a phone interview with The Associated Press, just the cold, hard analysis of an ex-athlete who has spent a majority of his 64 years as an orthopedic surgeon.
“I enjoy working with athletes who are at an elite level,” Heiden said. “Very often, I’ll also be talking with exercise physiologists. We will put our heads together and try to figure out how you can win a race that takes roughly 35 seconds (the 500 meters), then win a race that takes nearly 15 minutes (the 10,000) against the best of the best.
“No one has been able to come up with any good answers.”
With apologies to every other stellar athlete who accomplished something remarkable, Heiden’s sweep of every men’s speedskating event at the 1980 Winter
Olympics was and remains the greatest feat in sporting history.
Such a pronouncement is strictly subjective, of course, and in no way is meant to demean Wilt Chamberlain’s 100point game, or Babe Ruth hitting more homers by himself in a season than every other team in the American League, or Michael Phelps hoarding eight gold medals at the Beijing Summer Games.
But those achievements, as great as they were, comprised one extraordinary night, or came over the course of an entire season, or came with a series of victories that weren’t as diverse as Heiden’s.
Phelps, for instance, swept his five individual races in 2008, but the distances ranged from 100 to 400 meters (he also took part in three winning relays, swimming either 100 or 200 meters)
What about Usain Bolt? He won both the 100 and 200 sprints over
three consecutive Olympics, posting world-record times in both events. But it’s ludicrous to think of him also tackling the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000, much less winning them, which is basically what Heiden did.
One could argue for the sustained excellence of, say, Nolan Ryan, who tossed seven no-hitters while striking out more than 5,700 hitters — three more no-hitters and nearly 1,000 more Ks than anyone else in baseball history.
Or the outrageous factoid that Wayne Gretzky would still have more points than anyone in NHL history even if you erased his record-setting 894 goals.
Heiden had no room for error in Lake Placid. He had to be on top of his game for five straight races, going against the world’s best speedskaters — among them, a strong East German contingent that was likely getting plenty of pharmaceutical assistance.