Athlete Bios
Long-track speedskating
Hedrick: speedskating star began career in roller rinks
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 | 10:06 AM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
American long-track speedskater Chad Hedrick, won a gold, silver, and bronze medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)Chad Hedrick is a long-track speedskater from Spring, Texas, who won three medals — a gold, a silver and a bronze — at the Turin Games in 2006. His probable events in Vancouver are the 1,500 metres, the 5,000 and the three-man team pursuit.
Hedrick, who is 32, was an inline skating star before he turned to the ice. He started skating on wheels when he was two, taking his first strides at roller rinks in the Houston area owned by his father, Paul. He won 93 national championships and 50 world championships using the double push, a technique that he developed and that is now widely used.
At the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, one of Hedrick’s former inline rivals, Derek Parra, won the 1,500. Hedrick watched the telecast of the race from a Las Vegas casino and decided to gamble that he, too, could succeed on the ice.
Within two years of switching to speedskating, Hedrick won the 2004 world all-around championship. The next year another American, Shani Davis, took the all-around title from Hedrick, setting the stage for a much-anticipated showdown in Turin.
In the lead-up to the 2006 Olympics, Hedrick brashly declared his intention to equal Eric Heiden’s record haul of five gold medals at the 1980 Olympics. He settled for a gold in the 5,000 metres, a silver in the 10,000 and a bronze in the 1,500. He also finished sixth in the 1,000.
His success was overshadowed by a feud with Davis, who did not join Hedrick in the team pursuit, where the United States was sixth. If Davis had skated, the United States probably would have been able to compete for the gold medal. But Davis wanted to conserve his energy for his best event, the 1,000 metres.
The skaters have since repaired their rift, and Hedrick recently expressed gratitude that he has Davis to push him. Hedrick, who is five feet 11 inches and 160 pounds, said he has matured and grown spiritually in the last four years. He was married in June 2008 to the former Lynsey Adams, whom he met on the internet. In March 2009, the couple’s first child, a daughter, Hadley, was born.
Hedrick’s performance dropped off in the three years after the Olympics, in part because of a different training regimen, which featured more weight training and cycling. He also changed his distinctive skating style: instead of pushing off with his skate under his body, he adopted the traditional Dutch style, in which the force comes from the skate sliding away from the body.
In April 2009, Hedrick began training under Parra, his one-time inline rival and Olympic inspiration, in Salt Lake City, where the United States speedskating national team is based. Parra encouraged him to return to his old skating style as well as his pre-2007 training regimen. Hedrick is not making any bold predictions before the Vancouver Games, but his competitors know better than to count him out.
