TURIN, Italy – Chad Hedrick completed his Olympics medal set with silver in the 10,000 meters yesterday.
The Texan managed gold, silver and bronze here, the only American with three medals. His time of 13:05.40 yesterday fell a full second short of gold-medal winner Bob de Jong of the Netherlands.
Hedrick tired near the end of the race but held on to take second.
“I can honestly say that I went out there and left it all on the ice,” Hedrick said. “I felt great in the beginning but sort of lost my edge.”
Hedrick’s foil in these Olympics, Shani Davis, did not race in the 10,000. Hedrick blamed the controversy on the media, saying it was blown out of proportion and did not take away from his Olympic experience.
“You guys think more about Shani than I did,” he said. “That’s the truth. Shani and me, we were out there skating fast. We’re not worried about what each other’s doing. We might have done it for one race because there was this boiling point that you guys pushed on us.”
Hedrick looked exhausted near the end of yesterday’s 25-lap event. His mouth wide open and head dropping several times, Hedrick slowed in the late parts of the race.
“My heart is bigger than anybody else out there,” he said. “If another skater had felt like I did today, he wouldn’t have been on the podium. That’s just me refusing to lose.”
Soon after the race was finished, Hedrick turned his eyes to 2010.
“I’m going to be back, and we’re going to make another run for it in Vancouver,” he said. “I haven’t accomplished all my goals. I still have a lot of passion and I won’t quit until I get there. I’ve only been skating for three years. There’s much more I need to learn about this sport.”
Hedrick came to these Games with the hope of winning five gold medals to match Eric Heiden’s mark from the 1980 Lake Placid Games. Hendrick managed gold in the 5,000m, the first American gold medal of these Olympics. That would be his only gold, though. He won bronze in the 1,500m.