TURIN, Italy-Chad Hedrick was channel surfing the other night in his Olympic Village dorm room when he came across a documentary on Eric Heiden on Dutch TV.
Hedrick put down his clicker.
Having only taken up speedskating three years ago, Hedrick has been eager to fill in the blanks about the man he has been increasingly linked to in recent months.
“It made me realize I’m on the right track,” Hedrick said of the documentary a day later. “(Because) I’ve given my heart in each thing I’ve done in life.”
His latest pursuit could have Hedrick, 28, a Texan full of confidence and charm, on track over the next two weeks at the 2006 Olympic Games to match Eric the Great’s Winter Olympic record five gold medals at the 1980 Games in Lake Placid.
In the process Hedrick, a former World inline skating champion, could replace U.S. alpine skiing rebel Bode Miller as Turin 2006’s cover boy. Having already hit “The Tonight Show” on the way to Italy, Hedrick will be on NBC more than Katie and Matt over the next 17 days, beginning with Saturday afternoon’s 5,000-meter final.
“I don’t expect to walk away with anything less than a gold, to be honest with you,” Hedrick said.
He is less absolute, at least publicly, about chasing Heiden’s record.
“I think the media has thought a lot more about the Heiden record than I have,” insisted Hedrick, who also will compete in the 1,000, 1,500, 10,000 and team pursuit. “I don’t want anyone to think I’m a failure if I only win two or three gold medals.”
When he is asked if zero gold medals would be a failure, a wide smile stretches across his face.
“Yeah, zero gold medals would be a failure,” he said, chuckling. “I expect to win a couple here.”
In 2004 Hedrick, only a year after switching from inline skating, became the first non-Dutch skater since 1994 to win the World all-around title. He has set four records between 1,500 and 10,000 meters, including two in one week last November. He won the World Cup 5,000 last fall on Oval Lingotto, the Olympic venue, by nearly four seconds.
“(Hedrick) is the most gifted skater I’ve even seen,” said Derek Parra, the 2002 Olympic 1,500 champion.
As gifted as Heiden?
Heiden won all five of his golds in individual events. He also won them in a different era.
“I think it’s impossible because now it’s so specialized,” Heiden said of winning five golds in a single Games. “Now you have guys training just for the 500 meters. In the past that would have never happened.”
But Heiden, now the U.S. team doctor and a mentor to Hedrick, is putting nothing past the Texan. After all, Hedrick is known in the sport as “The Exception.” As in the exception to the rules.
“Physically he’s really tough,” Heiden said. “Inline’s so tough – he knows how to suffer. But what sets him apart is his confidence and mental ability. I’ve never seen Chad’s mental toughness in another athlete. Well, expect for one guy in cycling. He’s also a Texan.”
And like Lance Armstrong, Hedrick has revolutionized his sport.
“He’s opened a lot of eyes in the sport,” Heiden said.
Hedrick grew up in Spring, Texas, a Houston suburb. His parents, Wanda and Paul, met at a roller rink, and by the time Chad was born, they owned Champion Roller World, a neighborhood rink.
When Hedrick was 5 he was riding in a car struck by a drunken driver. The collision sent him through the windshield.
“When the ambulance came I was on the hood of the car,” he said seriously, before cracking, “I’m aerodynamic.”
He required 71 stitches on his face and still carries a scar through his right eyebrow.
During his recovery he leaned heavily on his grandmother, Geraldine Hedrick.
“I was really close to her,” Hedrick said. “She was like my best friend growing up. We went on vacations alone together.”
Saturday is the anniversary of her 1993 death from brain cancer at 68. “The last time I communicated with her I was holding her hand and I couldn’t even look at her it,” he recalled. If victorious, Hedrick said he will dedicate his gold medal to her.
By the time Hedrick was 17 he won the first of his nine World all-around inline titles. Hungry for something new, Hedrick first tried to switch to speedskating in 1997.
He traveled to Calgary, a speedskating hotbed, to make the transition but was blown off by Canadian coaches.
“I tried it, but they didn’t give me any attention,” Hedrick said. “They were really closed-minded to inline guys coming to ice. I was really frustrated. I planned to stay three weeks but I left after three days.”
So he returned to inline, running his total of World Championship gold medals to 50. But he was still bored. He was in Las Vegas playing blackjack when close friend and former inline racer Parra won gold in Salt Lake City.
“What am I doing here?” he recalled asking his father on the telephone that night.
A year later he was the top speedskater in the world. Hedrick recently bumped into the same Canadian coaches who snubbed him nine years ago.
“I didn’t say anything,” Hedrick said. “Everything’s been pretty self-explanatory.”
Contact the writer: sreid@ocregister.com
