1964-
Won a U.S.-record five individual gold medals over three Olympic Games.
Her goals were simple. All she ever wanted out of skating, Bonnie Blair once said, was to create the wind around her. And all she ever wanted was to skate.
Among individual Olympians, Blair is the most gilded woman in U.S. history. Her five gold medals are one more than diver Pat McCormick, sprinter Evelyn Ashford and swimmer Janet Evans have. As a 20-year-old in 1984, Blair made her Olympic debut, placing eighth in the 500 meters at Sarajevo. Never again would she lose an Olympic 500-meter race. Blair won consecutive golds in the 500 at the 1988 and '92 Games (where she also won the 1,000) and concluded her career two years later by winning the 500- and 1,000-meter races at the '94 Games in Lillehammer.
Blair never departed from her roots. She first put on skates at age four and learned to race in a ramshackle ice rink in Champaign, Ill. The youngest of six children, including four speed skaters, her success introduced America to a raucous crew of friends and family known as the Blair Bunch who cheered for Bonnie at each Olympics.
Perhaps Blair (now living in Milwaukee with her husband and fellow Olympian Dave Cruikshank and their infant son, Grant) was destined for greatness from the beginning. On the day she was born her father, Charlie, now deceased, dropped his pregnant wife Eleanor off at a hospital in Cornwall, N.Y., and sped off to time a meet at a nearby skating rink. The public-address announcer later offered the following bit of news: "Looks like Charlie's family has just added another skater." Not just another skater. The best ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment