His blue racing goggles perched atop his long brown hair, Gerard van Velde paced around the infield. Periodically he stole looks at the big scoreboard at the Utah Olympic Oval. The suspense escalated as he waited.
Skating the race of his career, van Velde, 30, a perennial championship bridesmaid from the Netherlands, had stunned the crowd of about 4,800 and his competitors Saturday, setting a world record in men’s 1,000-meter speedskating. Then he watched nervously as pair after pair of highly regarded skaters stumbled or faltered.
After 43 other skaters had taken a crack at him, van Velde was left in possession of the gold medal and a record time of 1 minute 7.18 seconds only a few years after giving up the sport to sell cars and only a few days after his girlfriend had to talk him out of a funk.
Van Velde–who had never placed higher than fourth in an Olympics or world championships, including earlier in the week when he had been fourth in the 500–edged more heralded countryman Jan Bos (1:07.53) and American Joey Cheek, who claimed bronze with a U.S. record of 1:07.61. Kip Carpenter, 22, of Brookfield, Wis., was fourth, 0.28 behind Cheek.
Previous world record-holder Jeremy Wotherspoon of Canada, who fell in the 500, barely righted himself on a slip and finished 13th.
Van Velde said he’d had trouble sleeping after missing out in the 500.
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“I wanted to have a medal, not fourth place again,” van Velde said. “This morning I was really relaxed. I thought, `OK, I’m here for fun. I’ll give everything I have and we’ll see what it’s worth.’ I never thought I would do this.”
Van Velde gave up skating for 18 months after placing no higher than fourth in the 1998 Nagano Games. He said he lost his motivation and his coach and had family problems. A friend talked him into racing again.
“Some people thought it was very dumb,” van Velde said.
Some people were wrong.
“Someone is always going to have a career race,” said American Casey FitzRandolph, who finished seventh. “Van Velde did that.”
Cheek, 22, of Greensboro, N.C., who aspires to host an MTV show, becomes the fourth U.S. man to medal in long-track in these Games, which had not been achieved before.
FitzRandolph, 27, of Verona, Wis., who won gold in the 500, went through the first 200 meters in 16.09, world-record pace, but lost his balance and nearly fell on the last lap. Nick Pearson of Vernon, Wis., was sixth.
Most shocking was Wotherspoon’s flameout. He is a world champion and World Cup star. Pearson likened Wotherspoon twice missing out on medals to Dan Jansen’s historic falls, but he is very proud of the depth U.S. skaters are showing in these Games.
“We have improved greatly over the last couple of years,” Pearson said.
Cheek skated superbly in December and poorly in January, so he was worried.
“It’s been the hardest three weeks of my life mentally,” Cheek said. “I had so many doubts. But it was better than I’ve ever skated. I thought there was no way that [the time] was going to stand up. With two pairs to go I thought fifth or sixth would be great in the Olympics.”
Instead Cheek has a bronze medal hanging around his neck and a U.S. record on his resume.