Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 15, 1994 TAG: 9402150169
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News
DATELINE: HAMAR, NORWAY LENGTH: Long
But Jansen did lose his footing Monday, just as he entered the final turn of the Olympic 500-meter race, and he ended up in eighth place.
"I slipped," he said quietly, sadly, about an hour after the race.
"Maybe this wasn't meant to be. I guess I'll have to live my life without an Olympic 500-meter gold medal."
The gold medal went instead to Alexander Golubev of Russia, who finished in 36.33 seconds. It was an Olympic record, yes, but nothing to write home to Moscow about.
Neither was teammate Sergei Klevchenya's silver-medal time of 36.39. Manabu Horii of Japan took the bronze in 36.53. Jansen's time was 36.68, well behind the medalists and light-years from his world record of 35.76. He still is the only man to break 36 seconds.
Monday was six years ago to the day that Jansen's sister Jane died of leukemia. Later that same afternoon on the Calgary ice, he went sprawling in the 500-meter race.
Four days later, incredibly, he fell again in the 1,000 meters.
At the 1984 Games in Sarajevo, Jansen had finished fourth in the 500 meters. Then came the Calgary disaster, then at the 1992 Olympics he again finished fourth.
And now this.
"I'm a little shocked," said Jansen, who will skate in the 1,000 on Friday. "But I feel less devastated than last time. . . . Everybody knows I'm the best in the world, but I wasn't today."
Jansen, 27, of West Allis, Wis., has now won every major title that exists in speedskating. Everything except an Olympic medal.
"I'm not a quitter," Jansen said. "I don't give up. I'll just go out and skate the 1,000. If it happens, it happens. If not, I'll go on."
Jansen said he wasn't nervous before Monday's race: "I felt so confident I thought I'd skate a world record."
The starter might have been a little nervous, though. He held Jansen and Canada's Sean Ireland perhaps a beat too long, and Ireland false-started.
On the restart, they both broke clean and Jansen went the first 100 meters in 9.82 seconds - a good time, although not supersonic.
Peter Mueller, Jansen's coach, had hoped Jansen would be paired with one of the quick-starting Japanese or Russian sprinters, particularly Golubev, who had the fastest opening 100 of the day at 9.58 seconds.
Jansen's subsequent split times were blazing - until he came to Dead Man's Curve, the final turn located in the prow of the magnificent Viking Ship arena. The slip came a third of the way into the corner.
Jansen's left skate started to slide a bit and he touched his left hand down on the ice, sending two of the red, doughnut-sized lane markers flying.
"It's a miracle he didn't fall," Mueller said.
As he wobbled, a huge groan went up from the stands.
"We were all in shock," said Barry Slotnick, a friend of Jansen's who was sitting along the backstretch. "The Americans, the Norwegians . . ."
Jansen quickly righted himself and finished the race, but the damage had been done. He said the error probably cost him a few tenths of a second, and thus the gold medal.
"Obviously, if I hadn't slipped, I'd have won the race by quite a bit," he said. "The ice was a little too hard for the 500."
Sprinters can't get a good grip with their blades when the ice is too hard, and Jansen said his skates "kind of ride up on top of the ice."
He certainly wasn't making any excuses, and there might have been something to his complaint. Jansen and Ireland were only the second pair of the afternoon, and in the very next pair, Roger Strom, the fine Norwegian sprinter, also slipped and crashed.
The other top skaters undoubtedly took a lesson from the two slip-ups - like a golfer reading the break of a putt - and knew they would have to skate somewhat conservatively.
And their cautiousness showed in the times.
Golubev's gold-medal time, for example, was slower than seven of the 12 World Cup races this season - despite the fact that the indoor Viking Ship oval is supposed to be the fastest track in the world.
Japanese sprinter Yasunori Miyabe, who finished ninth, thought Jansen had tried to accelerate too much in the turn. And Akira Kuroiwa, the Japanese sprint coach who won the Olympic bronze medal in 1988, said he thought Jansen looked tense before the race.
"DJ has not done the necessary mental training." Kuroiwa said. "He has good technique and good training, but the gold medal comes from here."
Then he tapped his chest.
\ MEDALISTS: Gold - Alexander Golubev, Russia. The 27-year-old started skating in 1980 with a sports club sponsored by a trade union. He has the fastest start in the world and will be a big factor in the 1,000 meters.
Silver - Sergei Klevchenya, Russia. He's the overall Russian champion and, like teammate Golubev, is coached by sprint guru Valeri Muratov. He'll be 23 next week.
Bronze - Manabu Horii, Japan. Born in Hokkaido, he's a student at Senshu University. He turns 22 on Friday, the day of the 1,000-meter race.
Keywords:
INFOLINE
by CNB