Speedskater Bonnie Blair is gritty and gutsy, not glamorous like a figure skater. She gets on the ice and goes - and yesterday, in the 1,000-meter race, she sprinted to her fifth Olympic gold medal. (She's also won a bronze.)
No American woman had ever won five golds in Olympic competition. No American - man or woman - had ever won six Olympic medals in the Winter Games.
Speedskating is a blue-collar sport; its practitioners don't sign multimillion-dollar deals with ice shows or corporate sponsors. At Olympics in Calgary, Albertville and now Lillehammer, Ms. Blair has sweated and sacrificed for the love of sport. Isn't that what the Olympics are really about?
