At Calgary, she won the 500-meter speed-skating race in a record time of 39.1 seconds. It was a bold performance; she took the ice just moments after East German Christa Rothenburger had thrown down her glove, having set her own world record. As George Bush might have said, it would not stand.
At Albertville, Blair will be the United States’ only returning gold medalist. Abroad she is a revered champion, whom European fans have serenaded with “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” But in America, sans goggles, Blair remains virtually anonymous outside Champaign, Ill., her hometown, and Butte, Mont., where she goes to college. “It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks of what I do,” she says. “The clock doesn’t lie.”
After Calgary, Blair moved on to competitive cycling, but found she missed skating’s speed (in her case, upwards of 30 miles an hour) and fierce individualism. The reentry was a little rugged. “Last year was so frustrating,” she says. “I’d look down at my feet and feel I had someone else’s skates on.”
This season Blair is back in form and has skated brilliantly in World Cup competition. She will go to Albertville a favorite to repeat. Even if the ‘92 Games don’t prove to be Calgary redux, Blair will have no regrets. “What I did in the past,” she says, with a tip of her cap to the Gershwins, “no one can ever take away from me.
