On October 23rd, over 35 Olympic long and short track speed skaters were joined by almost 220 attendees for the first “Celebrating the Pettit Center’s Legacy – The Olympic Speed Skaters’ Dinner” at the Hilton Milwaukee City Center. Friendships were renewed, inspiring stories were told, and appreciation was expressed by Olympians for volunteers at the Pettit and the Outdoor Oval who supported athletes starting almost 40 years ago. Net proceeds from the event are directed to capital improvements at the Pettit Center.
Remarks by the three luminaries of U.S. Olympics speed skating, Bonnie Blair Cruikshank, Dr. Eric Heiden, and Dan Jansen, highlighted heart-warming and amusing memories of their speed skating experiences on the site of the Pettit Center.
The Pettit Center is grateful to the Olympians who returned for the “reunion” dinner. The Olympians are excited for an even larger reunion in four years in anticipation of the Pettit Center hosting Olympic Qualifying Competition in advance of the 2014
Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
Below are some pictures from the Speed Skaters' Dinner
A view inside the ballroom
Mr. and Mrs. Joe Sweeney and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Gary D'Amato
Eric Heiden speaks about his favorite Pettit Center/Outdoor Rink memories
All of the former Olympians who were in attendance - find your favorite legend!
The Pettit Center will bring you insight and perspectives you can't find anywhere else with PETTIT BLOGS. Below are some blogs from past speed skating Olympians who share their stories about becoming a US Olympian.
My Time at the Games.
Remembering the Olympics makes my heart quicken. I remember walking around the Olympic Village, riding the bus to the Opening Ceremonies and standing on the medal podium with my teammates. All the while surrounded by athletes and families from all over the world. During that brief moment in time everyone is a friend- everyone has a smile. The lines and issues that divide us disappear and the world comes together. This is to me- the Olympic Spirit...
Darcie (Dohnal) Sharapova
A Member of the Team!
I competed in 2 Olympics, 1988 & 1992. I'll preface this by stating that I was blessed with a magnificent career, surrounded by the best people I've ever met, throughout an odyssey that defined my life for a long, long time. And without the unyielding support of my family, friends, and the unbelievably good fortune of having a revolving door of some of the world's very best coaches (Peter Schotting, Dianne Holum, Peter Mueller, Bob Fenn, and most critically, Mike Woods) I would not have succeeded. Although this is an "individual" sport, no skater is ever alone out there. I was blessed to have great people around me always. But quite candidly, my career was derailed by a significant injury in the fall of 1987 and I never, ever became the skater I was on the way to becoming. It's just the way it is. This event - injuring my back - changed the way I skated forever. If one looks at video before and video after, it's like 2 different skaters. Thus, I never maximized my actual physical potential as a speedskater. (Of course, it took a while after I retired to really see it. When you're in the fight you don't want to admit stuff like that.) So the trajectory of my career changed. And it became really, really mental. Two brief examples demonstrate this. The first is my recovery from the injury. I wiped out on October 21, 1987 with a lap to go in a 5000 time trial. I was significantly under the U.S. record at the time and this was the first race of the season while I was in heavy, heavy training. I managed to get up and still missed the record by only 10 seconds. This was a stunning result. And momentous. Because the next day while doing squats, I blew out a disc. I trace it to the fall. It was a jarring wipeout, my left skate hit a wrapper on the ice or something and stretched me out beyond belief and just kept going and I fell. Then while my teammates were in Calgary training and then competing in World Cups, I flew back to Milwaukee, was off the ice for 6 weeks, rehabbed with traction, one-legged squats, cycling, and a few epidural corticosteroid shots...and climbed back on the ice 11 days before trials.
I made the team. This was a mental and emotional victory. A triumph over doubt and a validation. To keep my composure argued for the perseverance of my spirit while proving how strong I was that year and had been prior to the injury.
The second event was my performance at the 1992 Trials. I had been nothing for two straight seasons prior to the 1992 Trials. No teams, not even a top 8 finish in the U.S. My technique was a mess. I was hanging on to try to re-capture something. And The thing that kept me going was a promise I had made to myself in 1988. I remember, standing in McMahon Stadium at the closing ceremonies. And they extinguished the flame. It flickered, and as I looked up at at it, then went black. I said this to myself: "No matter what. When that flame is lit again in 4 years in Albertville, I will be there to see it as an Olympian. This is my promise to myself."
That race is 1992 in the 10,000 meter Trials was an out-of-the-world performance. Out of my head. Pure focus. Pure guts. Pure pain. Pure drive. It was objectively remarkable. The skating community could not believe it. I remember thinking with 8 to go as my lungs were on fire and as my coach (Mike Woods) was pounding the ice and screaming out my schedule and my legs were brittle and blown-out with lactate...I said this to myself, right then, IN the race: "Jeff - this next 8 laps will determine the rest of your life. You must fight through to the very end. Do NOT GIVE IN!!"
I made the team again. No medals, but to me, these were moments where I was a champion. Because I left nothing out there. That's the Olympic Spirit. And I have so much respect for anyone that walks into the arena and tries.
Jeff Klaiber
.01 Over The Line!
I was 20 years old and it was November of 1978 when I arrived in Milwaukee to train for the '80 Olympic Team. I had been to a camp at my own expense that August and was not asked to stay on after my week or ten days was up. I was told it was too late, I was too old, and there just wasn't any point in my continuing to grace the presence of the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center.
I was not too happy about it and I had a few choice words for the powers that be, and I hit the road back to Champaign in my 1969 Chevrolet Bel Aire (cost: $50).
Depressed, I kind of canned the rest of the summer and then I started to do a little non-specific training.
It got to be November and I was on the phone to Mrs. Garbe at the West Allis Olympic Rink to find out when it opened and it was something like the 10th of November.
I drove up there from Champaign with the $50 car and about $150 in cash to my name. I found a flophouse called the Governor's Residence for Men for $45 a week. From then on, I began my quest to unseat national team members, world team members and anyone else that was in front of me at that point for a spot on the new national team, world sprint team, or country match teams that would travel to Europe and get some quality racing experience, coaching, a uniform, whatever meager perks it would provide.
So comes the 1979 National Sprint Championships in January, and I finished in 8th place, and it just wasn't enough to get on any of the season extending teams.
During this period of time Bob "Roscoe" Fenn was starting to shadow me at practices, attempting to tell me what to do, and so on. I resisted, because we had never gotten along.
When I was twelve years old, we were racing at Waveland Park in downtown Chicago, and it was freezing cold in the warming house, accept right near the coal-fired pot belly stove. Fenn was out racing his event and came in and demanded his seat. He was a senior and I was a juvenile. Guess who got the seat?
Anyway, I was improving at a stratospheric rate, and Roscoe said he wanted to help me. He showed up at the Governor's Residence for Men unannounced. It wasn't like he could have called. The pay phone was in the basement with the pool table, pop machines and laundry room.
Roscoe didn't like my accommodations, I did all my cooking with an electric fry pan. I kept my food in between the window and the storm window, I had it all figured out. He took me to dinner and for a couple beers. He was intent on convincing me I needed a coach, and ne place to stay.
We went back in forth about him always being on my butt at meets and constantly hassling me. He said that was over, and he wanted to help me do this in any way he could. We have been friends ever since. I ate and drank heartily. Roscoe dropped me off, and I said I would think about it, and tell him the next day at practice.
I accepted his offer to take a room at his apartment and he would be my coach.
On to packstyle and my first National Outdoor title. I had been wanting to win in St. Paul at that meet for years, and 7 distances in two days and it happened. Won two weeks later in Canada at North Americans.
The kid dream I had of some day being on an Olympic Team had just been splashed with gasoline and lit with the spark from these triumphs.
Season ended I went back home, hung out with my buddies in the Flying Monkees...name borrowed from the Wizard of Oz and what we called a social club.
By the end of April, Roscoe called me up, told me the vacation rest time was over and I better get my %@*&'ng a** up there and get down to some really painful serious training.
Copyright 2010 Erik Henriksen
The Pettit National Ice Center is a U.S. Olympic Training Site that supports the training needs of all speed skaters. Located in the geographic center of Milwaukee, the Pettit Center is near a variety of quality schools, businesses and shopping centers. In addition to the indoor Olympic Oval and two short-track training surfaces, the Pettit Center campus features:
For more information about High Performance Speed Skating at the Pettit Center, please call Rob Multerer at 414.935.4773 or email: rmulterer@thepettit.com.
