Eric Arthur Heiden was born on June 14,1958 and is an American physician and a former long track speed skater, road cyclist and track cyclist.
30 Facts About Eric Heiden
2.
Eric Heiden won an unprecedented five individual gold medals, and set four Olympic records and one world record at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games.
3.
Eric Heiden is the most successful Winter Olympian from a single edition of any Winter Olympics.
4.
Eric Heiden delivered the Athlete's Oath at those same 1980 Games.
5.
Eric Heiden's victories are significant, as few speed skaters have won competitions in both sprint and long-distance events.
6.
Eric Heiden is the only athlete in the history of speed skating to have won all five events in a single Olympic tournament and the only one to have won a gold medal in all events.
7.
Eric Heiden is considered by some to be the best overall speed skater in the sport's history.
8.
Eric Heiden ranked No 46 in ESPN's SportsCentury 50 Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century in 1999, the only speed skater to make the list.
9.
Eric Heiden was born in Madison, Wisconsin on June 14,1958.
10.
Eric Heiden's father, Jack Heiden, was a longtime orthopedic surgeon in Madison.
11.
Eric Heiden graduated from Madison West High School in 1976.
12.
Eric Heiden won the World Junior Speed Skating Championships in 1977 and 1978.
13.
Eric Heiden broke the points world record in both allround and the sprinting distances.
14.
Eric Heiden finished his speed skating career by finishing second behind Hilbert van der Duim at the 1980 World Allround Championships in Heerenveen.
15.
Eric Heiden stood at the top of the Adelskalender, a ranking system for long-track speed skating, for a record 1,495 days, and he won the Oscar Mathisen Award four times in a row from 1977 until 1980.
16.
Eric Heiden received the 1980 James E Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States.
17.
Eric Heiden was elected to the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame in 1990.
18.
Eric Heiden finished 19th and last in the men's individual pursuit event.
19.
Eric Heiden was one of the first cross-over athletes, becoming a founding member of the 7-Eleven Cycling Team.
20.
Together with his former speed skating coach, Jim Ochowicz, he conceived of the idea of a European-style sponsored team for North American riders Heiden won a few American professional races.
21.
Eric Heiden finished the 1985 Giro d'Italia and took part in the 1986 Tour de France, although he did not complete the race, crashing on a downhill stretch and suffering a concussion five days from the finish.
22.
Eric Heiden is believed to have recorded one of the fastest times at 14:10 on one of the local benchmark climbs in Woodside, California: Old La Honda Road.
23.
In 1985, Heiden won the first US Professional Cycling Championship, becoming the American road race champion.
24.
In 1999, Eric Heiden was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame.
25.
Eric Heiden completed medical school at Stanford University in 1991, and orthopedic residency training at University of California, Davis, in 1996, then spent a year at a sports medicine clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.
26.
Eric Heiden returned to California to practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Sacramento.
27.
Eric Heiden opened a sports medicine-based practice at The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital in Murray, Utah and expanded Heiden Orthopaedics with an additional office in Park City, Utah.
28.
In 2009, Eric Heiden was one of the team of doctors assisting US speed skater JR Celski as the latter recovered from a very bad speed skating crash during the US Olympic trials.
29.
Eric Heiden met fellow medical student Karen Drews while the two were studying at Stanford, and they married in 1995.
30.
Eric Heiden was offered many sponsorship opportunities after his record-setting performance in the 1980 Winter Olympics, but turned down most of them, saying he had enough money, and preferred the anonymity.