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Fall melts long-track skater's run for the gold
By Jay Evensen
Deseret News Olympic specialist
Parents teach this lesson to their children almost from birth: It doesn't matter how many times you fall. What matters is that you get up and try again.
But what if your fall comes in the Olympics, during the very event you have trained for and focused on for years? How do you get up from something like that?
"I grew up with mass skates in Canada where, when you fell down, you just got up again and kept going," said Canada's Jeremy Wotherspoon, whose left skate caught on the ice only five steps into his 500-meter long-track speedskating race Monday. "The first thing I did, I sort of got up and then I thought, 'What's the point?' "
What, indeed. In a sport where winners are decided by hundredths of a second, Wotherspoon had no chance to recover. He had been the favorite to win a gold medal. In the blink of an eye, it was all gone.
As he struggled with his emotions, he did what most people would do. He talked to his parents, his coach and his friends, including U.S. skater Casey FitzRandolph, who ended up winning the gold.
Oh yes, and he did one more thing. He showed up Tuesday and ran the second leg of the two-day 500-meter event — though he had no chance for a medal.
"You learn from it," he said. "You have to mentally get ready for the next race. I don't really think about it."
Wotherspoon still has a chance in the 1,000-meter race on Saturday. But for U.S. skater Marc Pelchat, a 34-year-old who decided on a comeback two years ago despite retiring after the 1998 Games in Nagano, there will be no more chances.
That may explain why he did decide to continue Monday, even though he, too, fell shortly after the start of the race. Pelchat was on line for the fastest first 100 meters ever in the event. When he fell, he spun around, got up, came to the kind of screeching stop a hockey player would make and then continued to race. He still posted a respectable 9.9 seconds in the opening 100 meters, but he ended up hopelessly far behind in the standings.
Yet Pelchat was there again on Tuesday, racing his hardest.
"I had a hard time dealing with yesterday," he said on Tuesday. "I had a hard time going to bed early on. When I got here today I was drained. I think it just took a lot out of me emotionally. I feel honestly in my heart I just tried too hard."
Pelchat firmly believes he is the fastest skater in the competition, but he won't get another chance to prove it, ever. What will he do now?
"I need to find a job," he said.
E-mail: even@desnews.com
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February 13, 2002
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