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From then on, watching the show became a ritual. I couldn’t get the image of Heiden out of my mind: the powerful leg motion; the perfect synchronization of his arms; the aristocratic elegance of technique blended with the brutal instinct to win. It was a graceful balance of violence and art. Over the next two years, I only saw Heiden skate three or four times. On many Saturdays, Wide World of Sports would be without speed skating. I would be disappointed, but would tune in next week just the same. Then in 1980, I hit the Eric Heiden mother lode: the Lake Placid Winter Games. I watched the nightly coverage and can remember each one of Heiden’s five gold medals — all setting new Olympic records (one setting a world record). Somewhere in my mother’s house, I still have newspaper clippings about each race, which I posted on the wall next to my bed. (These clippings are from a Mexican newspaper which honored Heiden’s performance, even if he was a norteamericano.)
The Lake Placid Games filled me with speed skating images. But that wasn't enough. I wanted to skate myself. When I turned 15, I persuaded my mother and my step-father to take me to a roller skating rink on the U.S.-side of the border. I quickly became a rink rat, and for the next few years, spent as much time as I could skating. I was in heaven. At that time, Sports Illustrated put Eric Heiden on one of its covers. He was was wearing his Descente golden suit and flying along in the crossover position. In the accompanying article, there was another photo that caught my attention. It was a picture of Heiden skating toward the photographer on a road, rather than ice. It looked like he was wearing one-wheeled skates. Needless to say, they were inline skates. Unfortunately, it took me years to find out more about them. As it turned out, I fell away from skating at that point and embarked on a successful career in track and field, which got me through college and established my continuing interest in fitness. However, my romance with track never extinguished my love for speed skating. And now, as I reach middle age, I am finally learning to speed skate. I look back on my teenage years and can’t help but think of the way Eric Heiden influenced me. I used to pretend I had won a game show where the prize was to meet the person of your choice. The answer back then is the same as today: Eric Heiden. Many would laugh, but to keep my bearings, I like to remember this joke: A devout speed skater dies and goes to heaven. At the Pearly Gates, he asks Saint Peter if there is speed skating in heaven? “Of course. Let me show you,” Peter says and leads him to the perfect sheet of ice. Just then a blur speeds past in a gold skinsuit. “Is that Eric Heiden?” the skater asks. “No, Eric Heiden is alive and well,” Peter says. “That’s God. He just pretends to be Eric Heiden.”
Francisco Lopez is a speed skater “wannabe” who in a past life was a track and field runner at the University of Texas-El Paso, where he earned a B.S. in kinesiology. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Latest headlines: • Lewis, Gunther Make U.S. Team • Growing Skating One Kid at a Time | |||||||||||||||||||||
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The race was over in seconds, and then another sport segment filled the screen. I was distraught because I wasn’t sure what I had been watching. I grabbed a pen and wrote down as much information as I could: “Eric Heiden ... Wide World of Sports ... Saturday ... 3:30 pm.”