Speed Skater: Bonnie – the Blur – Blair

She had felt nervous earlier in the day and, scared of getting an upset stomach, limited herself to a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich for lunch. But as she glided up to the starting line for the 500-meter sprint at Calgary’s Olympic Oval, American Speed Skater Bonnie Blair felt confident, even though minutes earlier her rival, the powerful East German skater Christa Rothenburger, had set a new world record of 39.12 sec. Blair glanced at the stands, where a score of rooting family members were clustered around heartening banners (GO, BONNIE, GO). Moments later, she burst away from the line in one of her best starts, covering the initial 100 meters in 10.55 sec. “My first turn wasn’t as good as I would have liked, but the rest of the race was perfect,” she recalled later. Riding low over her skates, she flashed across the finish in 39.10 sec.

Her margin of victory translated into a mere 10.5 in. — about the length of a speed-skating blade; for her crying, cheering relatives in the crowd, it might as well have been a mile. Blair, 23, willowy but muscular at 5 ft. 5 in., had brought home the gold medal to the U.S. And she had recaptured her world record from Rothenburger, who had first taken it away on the same rink only two months before. But wait. That’s not all. Later in the week Blair went flying around the rink again to win the bronze medal in a personal best time of 1:18.31 for the 1,000 meters. Only in Saturday’s 1,500 meters did she fail to win a medal. To her fast-growing mob of fans, the freckle-faced American had earned her sobriquet, Bonnie the Blur.

Always a fierce competitor, Blair was hardly overawed by her 500-meter gold. “Looking back, I think maybe I could have got a little more out of it. I was tired the last 100 meters, but I think I got it on guts.” She was exultant after crossing the finish, however, her arms held skyward and tears streaming down her face, hurrying to embrace Boyfriend and Teammate Dave Silk. For Mother Eleanor and Father Charlie, their two sons and three other daughters, it was the culmination of lifetimes spent on skates, first in Cornwall, N.Y., where Bonnie was born, then in Champaign, Ill., where the family moved when the future Olympic champion was two. The story is often told that Charlie Blair received word of the birth of “yet another skater” over the public address system at the local rink. Bonnie the tot first ventured onto the ice with her shoes inside the smallest pair of figure skates her mother could find. “Skating was always part of our lives, and of course it became part of Bonnie’s,” says Eleanor Blair.

Many who had contributed to Bonnie’s success were cheering her on last week. There was Cathy Priestner, Canada’s 1976 speed-skating silver medalist, who first coached her for Olympic racing. And there were the Champaign Police Department and Jack Sikma, the Milwaukee Bucks basketball player who helped sponsor her. She will probably never need such financial backing again. She has signed a contract with Disney World, and other commercial deals are sure to follow. Success is unlikely to spoil the engaging Midwesterner with the toothy grin. She plans to go back to school soon and get a degree in physical education. But before that, she has one more goal on the ice. “I still think the 500 can be done in under 39 seconds,” she says. “I’d like to be the first to prove it.”