Eric Heiden

Eric Arthur Heiden (born June 14 1958 in Madison, Wisconsin) is an American former speed skater who won all the men's speed skating races, and thus an unprecedented five gold medals, 4 olympic records and 1 world record at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York, United States. He received the 1980 James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States.

Heiden is an icon in the speedskating community and, in particular, in Europe where the sport is highly regarded. His victories are significant as few speed skaters (and athletes in general) have won competitions in both sprint and long-distance events.

Beth Heiden, Eric's sister, won a bronze medal at the 1980 games as well, giving the Heiden family exactly half of the medals won by the United States at those games.

During his short speed skating career, Heiden also won 3 World Allround Championships and 4 World Sprint Championships. He three times broke the 1,000 metres world record, twice in the 3,000 metres, and once each in the 1,500 metres and 10,000 metres, and he broke the points world record in both allround and the sprinting distances. Heiden finished his speed skating career by finishing second behind Hilbert van der Duim at the 1980 World Allround Championships in Heerenveen. Heiden stood at the top place of the Adelskalender for an impressive time period of 1,495 days, and won the Oscar Mathisen Award four times in a row from 1977 until 1980. As of 2006, he still is the only skater who has won the award four times.

World Records

Over the course of Heidens career he skated 14 world records

1500m junior,2,02,75
5000m junior,7,30,23
1500m junior,1,59,46
Allround junior,168,716
3000m junior,4,16,20
Allround junior,166,584
5000m junior,7,23,54
3000m,4,07,00
1000m,1,14,99
Allround,162,973
3000m,4,06,91
Sprint,150,250
1500m,1,54,79
10,000m,14,28,13

After Skating

Later, both Eric Heiden and his sister became professional cyclists, winning a few American professional races and Eric taking part in the 1986 Tour de France, although he did not complete the race as he fell on the last stage. Eric still holds the official record on one of the local benchmark climbs in Woodside, California: Old la Honda Rd. He also won the first Philadelphia bike race in 1985.

After starting his undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Heiden earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Stanford University in 1984 and earned his M.D., also from Stanford, in 1991. He is now a practicing orthopedic surgeon in Davis, California. In doing so, he has followed in the footsteps of his father, Jack Heiden, a longtime orthopedic surgeon in Madison, Wisconsin. Heiden has served as team physician to WNBA and NBA teams and to the United States Olympic Speedskating Teams in 2002 and 2006.Heiden also studies sports medicine.

At the 2006 Winter Olympics, Cindy Klassen tied Eric Heiden's record of winning 5 medals at a single Winter Olympics by a speed skater. However, hers were not all gold.

External links

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Eric Heiden

World Records

After Skating

External links