Eric Heiden, Lord of the Rink

A short while back I had a long chat with Eric Heiden, a true sporting legend. At the 1980 Winter Olympics he won 5 straight gold medals in the long track speed skating - that’s every single event and distance, a feat never matched by any other athlete.

Eric turned his back on the sport and the assured fortune that was his for the taking, and became a pro cyclist. As part of the 7-11 team he was on the squad for the Tour de France, a first for American cycling.

Here is a very brief extract from the chat, on the skating side of his career…

ST; As the medals racked up you were becoming a global superstar. Were you aware of this, and how did you handle the pressure if so?

EH; I guess I kind of grew in to it. I never believed that it would get to me, and I never really let it get to me, or appreciated the pressure from the press or the public. 

I put a lot of pressure on myself. Every time I skated I wanted to skate well, and if I did not skate well or if I felt I’d left something behind on the ice, I was tough on myself. I’d tell myself that I‘m never going to let that happen again.

I’d done that once, a few years before in the world championships. I’d skated in the 10,000 meters, it was enough for the press and the public, but deep inside I felt ‘d let myself down.

When I skated and did the best I could and it was good enough to win then it was great. If it was not good enough to win it was ok, but at least I knew that all of the hard work, all of the team support I had – I did not want to let anybody down.

ST; You were a superstar after those Olympics and had some extremely lucrative offer and yet you walked away from fame and fortune – what was it all about?

EH; I had plans, things I wanted to do after skating and I felt hat taking up some of those opportunities would interfere with those plans, things I’d been looking forward to getting back in to for many years.

One was cycling, I wanted to get into cycling. If you start doing a lot of PR and promotion then that really cuts into your time to train. The second was school – I wanted to get back to school, and I knew if I wanted to go school that I couldn’t have a lot of distractions.

I did some things, but I certainly didn’t take advantage of all of the things that were hooked there.