Athlete Bios
Long-track speedskating
Morrison looking to finish on top
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 | 9:55 AM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
Canada's Denny Morrison won a silver medal as a member of the team pursuit at the Turin Olympics. (Jasper Juinen/Getty Images) Denny Morrison is a Canadian speedskater who was the 2008 world champion in the 1,500 meters. Morrison, 24, began skating as a child because his parents wanted him to learn so that he could play hockey. But there were no hockey teams for kids his age, so Morrison began speedskating. He stuck with it, even after he began to play hockey.
“There’s something cool about being the speedskater among a bunch of hockey-playing friends growing up,” he said.
Until the 2002-03 season, Morrison competed in short-track as well as long-track speedskating, but he now focuses on long-track. He helped Canada win a silver medal in the team pursuit at the 2006 Turin Games.
In an attempt to gain an edge on his American rivals Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick, Morrison switched to longer skating blades in 2009. The results were not what he wanted, however, and he switched back to his old blades after finishing in12th place at a World Cup event in the Netherlands.
“It’s nice to be able to step on my skates, step on the ice and be confident in my equipment and be able to focus on my skating,” he told The Calgary Herald. “Before, I couldn’t focus on my racing because I was so concerned with my equipment, worried if it was going to give me what I wanted from it.”
He won silver in the 1,000 metres and bronze in the 1,500 at the 2009 world championships in Vancouver. At the 2008 world championships in Nagano, Japan, he won bronze in the 1,000 to go along with his gold medal in the 1,500. He won three medals at the 2007 world championships in Salt Lake City: silver in the 1,000 meters and team pursuit and bronze in the 1,500 meters.
In March 2008 in Calgary, Morrison set the world record in the 1,500 in one minute 42.01 seconds. That record was subsequently broken by Davis.
His older brother, Jay, is also a member of the Canadian national team.
“I would say I don’t feel like I achieved my Olympic dream because my Olympic dream wasn’t to do well in any race or just go to the Olympics, it was to go to the Olympics with my brother,” Morrison once said.
