- Cindy Klassen
-
Cindy Klassen 
Personal information Born August 12, 1979
Winnipeg, ManitobaHeight 1.72 m (5 ft 8 in) Weight 71 kg (160 lb; 11.2 st) Website www.cindyklassen.com Sport Country 
CanadaSport Speed skating Medal recordCompetitor for CanadaWomen's speed skating Olympic Games Gold 2006 Turin 1500 m Silver 2006 Turin Team pursuit Silver 2006 Turin 1000 m Bronze 2006 Turin 5000 m Bronze 2006 Turin 3000 m Bronze 2002 Salt Lake 3000 m World Championships Gold 2006 Calgary Allround Gold 2005 Inzell 1500 m Gold 2005 Inzell 3000 m Gold 2003 Gothenburg Allround Gold 2011 Inzell Team pursuit Silver 2007 Salt Lake City 1500 m Silver 2005 Moscow Allround Silver 2005 Inzell Team pursuit Silver 2004 Seoul 1500 m Silver 2003 Calgary Sprint Silver 2002 Heerenveen Allround Bronze 2007 Salt Lake City 3000 m Bronze 2007 Heerenveen Allround Bronze 2007 Hamar Sprint Bronze 2004 Seoul 1000 m Bronze 2003 Berlin 1000 m Bronze 2001 Salt Lake City 1500 m Cindy Klassen, OM (born August 12, 1979 in Winnipeg, Manitoba) is a Canadian long track speed skater. Klassen is a six-time medalist (one gold, two silver, three bronze) at the Winter Olympics. She is tied with Clara Hughes for Canada's all-time most decorated Olympian with 6 medals each. Both Klassen and Hughes are from Winnipeg.
Klassen is the only Canadian Olympian to win 5 medals in a single Olympic games and the first female speed skater to win 5 medals in a single games at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.[1] She is the current world record holder over three distances, the 1,000 m, the 1,500 m, and the 3,000 m. She also holds the Canadian Record over the 5,000 m.[2] Klassen is the leader of the Adelskalender, which is the all-time world ranking for speed skating. In 2003, Klassen became the first Canadian in 27 years to win the overall title at the World Speed Skating Championships.[2]
Klassen has several major awards and accolades having won the Lou Marsh Trophy in 2006, which is awarded for Canada's best athlete of the year. Due to her tremendous accomplishments at the 2006 Winter Olympics and her many accomplishments throughout her career, Klassen was named to the Order of Manitoba.[2] Klassen was awarded the Oscar Mathisen Award in 2006 for outstanding speed skating performance of the year. In 2007 she was given the award for Female Athlete of the Year at the Canadian Sports Awards.[2] Klassen won the 2005 and 2006 Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as female athlete of the year as presented from the Canadian Press.[2] She was also tipped as Speed Skating Canada’s 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007 Female Skater of the Year for long track speed skating.[2] The Canadian Mint featured Klassen on a Canadian quarter in 2010 as part of their Olympic memories editions and as a recognition of her six Olympic medals.[3]
Contents
Career
Klassen is a descendant of Mennonite immigrants to Manitoba and is a graduate of Maple Leaf School in the North Kildonan area of Winnipeg and Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute in the Elmwood area of Winnipeg. She started her sports career as an ice hockey player at Gateway Community Club in Winnipeg; in her youth she played for the Canadian National Youth Team. When she was not selected for the 1998 Winter Olympics, she switched to speed skating and soon she proved to be a natural talent.
Klassen missed the entire 2003–2004 season due to a serious injury: she fell during training, colliding with another skater, hitting his skate, and as a result cutting 12 tendons in her right arm.
Record Success
In 2006, she announced she would not carry the Canadian flag at the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, although she had not yet been asked. The flag was instead carried by women's ice hockey veteran Danielle Goyette.
Going into the 2006 Winter Olympics Klassen was considered one of the favourites following her allround title in 2003 and two world distance titles in 2005.[4] Klassen started out in Turin by winning a silver in the 1,000 m, narrowly missing out on gold.[5] Following this silver Klassen became Olympic champion in the 1,500 m. She followed this thrilling gold with a silver in the women's team pursuit, and bronze in the 3,000 m and 5,000 m.[5] Following her 5th and final medals of the games on February 26, 2006 Klassen said of her success that "Going in to the Games, I thought maybe the 1,500 and 3,000 would be my strong point and maybe I could get a medal in those. To come out with five, it's been better than expected and really a dream come true."[5]
Klassen became the first Canadian to win five medals in one Olympic Games. With this achievement, she tied American Eric Heiden's record of five medals won at an Olympics (1980) by a speedskater. At the same time, she overtook the previous Canadian record of most medals (three) in 1984, held by Gaetan Boucher. Klassen also became the first female speed skater to win five medals in a single Olympics, surpassing Lidiya Skoblikova's 4 medals in the 1964 Olympics.[1] Combined with her bronze medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics, she became the first Canadian to win six career Olympic medals, surpassing the five medal mark set previously by Marc Gagnon and Phil Edwards and matched in the same race by winner Clara Hughes at the same 2006 Winter Olympic games.[5]
After her success at the Turin Olympics, she was named flagbearer for the closing ceremony. Her winning the largest number of medals at the Turin Olympics caused IOC president Jacques Rogge to call her the "woman of the games".[6] The following day, February 27, Klassen signed the most lucrative endorsement deal ever for a Canadian amateur athlete, with Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS), estimated at about $1 million. Klassen also signed an endorsement deal with McDonald's. On December 11, she was named as the winner of the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canadian athlete of the year, beating out the likes of Joe Thornton, Justin Morneau, Steve Nash and team mate Clara Hughes.[1]
Surgery and the 2010 Olympics
Cindy Klassen during the 2007 World Championships
In preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Klassen decided not to participate in the fall races for the Speed Skating World Cup. She returned to competition in 2008 but decided to cut the skating season short in February 2008 after her sister was in a near-fatal accident.[7] She also said that she will only focus on the World Single Distance Championships. Defending her all-around title and high World Cup classifications are not her main goal for the season.[8][9] Later that year in July 2008 Klassen had surgery to repair damage done to her knees over her career and in high school basketball.[10] The surgeries would keep her from competing in the 2008–09 World Cup. Sometime later in 2009, her doctor discussed her knees saying that "These things don't go away, they're not cured. It's not like a broken bone that once it's healed it's back to good strength and can take stress. It's not like that. It's never going to be perfectly normal. It's not possible to get that." He later added that the only way her knees would stop degenerating would be for Klassen to stop speed skating.[11]
On January 5, 2010 the Royal Canadian Mint announced that they were minting 22 million Canadian quarters with an image of Klassen in a speed skating pose on it. 3 million of the quarters were minted with a red maple leaf on it. The mint issued the quarters as an honour to Klassen's 6 medals in the Olympics, and as part of their Olympic Moments quarter-coins series.[12]
Coming back from double knee-surgery and two years off of skating, Klassen's main goal at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver was simply to compete. Klassen saying that ""My goal is just to qualify. To get there would be great."[13] She failed to medal in 2010, placing 21st in the 1500 m, 14th in the 3000 m, and 12th in the 5000 m. Klassen was also named as an alternate in the Team Pursuit.[14] While Klassen stated that she was unsure of whether she would continue speed skating after the games, she believed that her knees would hold out and that the 2014 Sochi Olympics were a possibility.[14]
Present
Klassen qualified for the 2010–11 World Cup in October 2010. Of qualifying, her ongoing injury struggles, and surgery recover Klassen said that “I’m just going to go out and do the best that I can and see what happens. My knees still hurt. Some days are better than others. There’s always aches and pains in skating . . . for me I feel like I’m more of a work skater than technical skater. I’ve been able to do harder training this year than I have in the past, which is a good thing because that’s kind of my strong point so I’ll see where that takes me. It’s been fun but it’s been really hard, too.”[15] At the first meet of the World Cup season Klassen got her first individual podium result for the first time since the 2007–08 season.[16] Klassen finished second in the 3,000 m and followed that placing up with a fourth place finish in the 1,500 m the next day.
Results
Medals
- 2002
- Bronze medal 3000 m at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City
- 2003
- 2005
- World champion 1500 m and 3000 m at the World Single Distance Championships
- Silver medal at the World allround championships
- 2006
- Gold medal and Olympic champion 1500 m at the Winter Olympics in Turin
- Bronze medal 3000 m at the Winter Olympics in Turin
- Silver medal Team Pursuit at the Winter Olympics in Turin
- Silver medal 1000 m at the Winter Olympics in Turin
- Bronze medal 5000 m at the Winter Olympics in Turin
- World allround champion
- 2007
- Bronze medal at the WM Sprint Championships
- Bronze medal at the World allround championships
Awards
- 2005
- Winner of the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as Canadian female Athlete of the Year
- 2006
- Winner of the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canadian Athlete of the Year
- Winner of the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as Canadian female Athlete of the Year
- 2008
- Featured on a special edition of the 2009 25 cent Canadian coin. She is one of the few living people (other than a reigning monarch) to be featured on coinage.
Records
As of February 2010, she is the current holder of the world record at the 1,000 m, the 1,500 m, and the 3,000 m and is also the leader of the Adelskalender, the all-time world ranking. The 1:51.79 she skated on the 1,500 m on November 20, 2005 is a phenomenal time; almost 1.5 seconds faster than the previous world record. As a reference, this would have been a world record for men in 1994 before the introduction of clap skates.
Personal records Women's Speed skating Distance Time Date Location Notes 500 m 37.51 2006-03-18 Calgary 1,000 m 1:13.11 2006-03-25 Calgary Current WR 1,500 m 1:51.79 2005-11-20 Salt Lake City Current WR 3,000 m 3:53.34 2006-03-18 Calgary Current WR 5,000 m 6:48.97 2007-03-19 Calgary Current CR 10,000 m 15:17.63 2002-03-25 Heerenveen See also
- List of multiple Olympic medalists at a single Games
- List of multiple Winter Olympic medalists
References
- ^ a b c "Klassen wins Lou Marsh Award". CBC News. 11 December 2006. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2006/12/11/lou-marsh-trophy.html. Retrieved 2010-02-26.
- ^ a b c d e f "Speed Skating Canada Bio". http://www.speedskating.ca/athlete-bios-long-track.cfm?memberID=3075&teamID=229. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
- ^ "Mint Releases 25-Cent Coin Celebrating Cindy Klassen's Five Medals in Long-Track Speed Skating in 2006". Mint.ca. http://www.mint.ca/store/news/mint-releases-25cent-coin-celebrating-cindy-klassens-five-medals-in-longtrack-speed-skating-in-2006-7600003?cat=News+releases&nId=700002&parentnId=600004&nodeGroup=About+the+Mint. Retrieved 2010-01-05.
- ^ "Cindy Klassen Biography and Olympic Results". Sports Reference. 26 February 2010. http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/kl/cindy-klassen-1.html. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
- ^ a b c d "Klassen becomes Canada's greatest Olympian". CTV News. 11 December 2006. http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SpecialEvent2/20060223/gold_bronze_skating_060223/. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
- ^ CBC: "Canada: Olympic powerhouse?" Retrieved June 7, 2007.
- ^ Klassen cancels skating season to care for sister
- ^ Olympic champion Cindy Klassen delays start to speedskating season, topix.net
- ^ Cindy Klassen neemt even pauze, nos.nl
- ^ "Cindy Klassen on road to recovery after knee surgery". Canadian Press. 11 January 2009. http://www.tsn.ca/olympics/story/?id=266697. Retrieved 2010-02-26.
- ^ "Klassen skating through the pain". Toronto Star. October 23, 2009. http://olympics.thestar.com/2010/article/714802--klassen-skating-through-the-pain. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
- ^ "Mint honours speedskater Cindy Klassen with coin". CBC News. 5 January 2010. http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/story/2010/01/05/mb-cindy-klassen-coin-winnipeg.html. Retrieved 2010-02-26.
- ^ "Klassen has long way to go, short time to get there". Edmonton Journal. 7 December 2009. http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/2010wintergames/speed-skating/Klassen+long+short+time+there/2311970/story.html. Retrieved 2010-02-26.
- ^ a b "Klassen, named pursuit team alternate, faces questions about future after Games". Winnipeg Free Press. 26 February.
- ^ John Downs (21 October 2010). "Klassen qualifies for World Cup speed skating team". Vancouver Sun. http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Speed+skating+Cindy+Klassen+qualifies+World+team/3708289/story.html. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
- ^ "Klassen wins silver at speedskating World Cup". CBC Sports. 13 November 2010. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2010/11/13/sp-speedskating-klassen-silver.html. Retrieved 2010-08-14.
- ^ "Records". Speed Skating Canada. http://www.speedskating.ca/records.cfm. Retrieved 2010-02-26.
- ^ "Speed Skating Canada Cindy Klassen profile". Speed Skating Canada. http://www.speedskating.ca/athlete-bios-long-track.cfm?memberID=3075&teamID=185. Retrieved 2010-02-26.
External links
- Cindy Klassen's official homepage
- "Canada’s greatest Olympian Cindy Klassen and MTS form winning team with major sponsorship deal" – MTS press release, 27 February 2006
- Cindy Klassen biography and result listings – At SkateResults.com
- Cindy Klassen biography – At Speed Skating Canada
- Photos of Cindy Klassen – At Lars Hagen's DESG Photo website
Awards Preceded by
Shani DavisOscar Mathisen Award
2006Succeeded by
Sven KramerPreceded by
Steve NashLou Marsh Trophy winner
2006Succeeded by
Sidney CrosbyLeaders of the Adelskalender, Women [1] Natalya Petrusyova • Gabi Zange-Schönbrunn • Karin Enke • Andrea Schöne • Karin Kania • Andrea Ehrig-Mitscherlich • Gunda Niemann • Claudia Pechstein • Anni Friesinger • Cindy KlassenOlympic champions in women's 1500 m speed skating 1960: Lidiya Skoblikova · 1964: Lidiya Skoblikova · 1968: Kaija Mustonen · 1972: Dianne Holum · 1976: Galina Stepanskaya · 1980: Annie Borckink · 1984: Karin Enke · 1988: Yvonne van Gennip · 1992: Jacqueline Börner · 1994: Emese Hunyady · 1998: Marianne Timmer · 2002: Anni Friesinger · 2006: Cindy Klassen · 2010: Ireen WüstWorld Champions in Women's 1500 m Speed Skating 1996: Annamarie Thomas • 1997: Gunda Niemann • 1998: Anni Friesinger • 1999: Emese Hunyady • 2000: Claudia Pechstein • 2001: Anni Friesinger • 2003: Anni Friesinger • 2004: Anni Friesinger • 2005: Cindy Klassen • 2007: Ireen Wüst • 2008: Anni Friesinger • 2009: Anni Friesinger • 2011: Ireen WüstWorld Champions in Women's 3000 m Speed Skating 1996: Gunda Niemann • 1997: Gunda Niemann • 1998: Gunda Niemann • 1999: Gunda Niemann • 2000: Claudia Pechstein • 2001: Gunda Niemann • 2003: Anni Friesinger • 2004: Claudia Pechstein • 2005: Cindy Klassen • 2007: Martina Sáblíková • 2008: Kristina Groves • 2009: Renate Groenewold • 2011: Ireen WüstWorld Champions in Women's team pursuit 2005: Germany (Daniela Anschütz-Thoms, Anni Friesinger, Sabine Völker) • 2007: Canada (Kristina Groves, Christine Nesbitt, Shannon Rempel) • 2008: Netherlands (Ireen Wüst, Renate Groenewold, Paulien van Deutekom) • 2009: Canada (Kristina Groves, Christine Nesbitt, Brittany Schussler) • 2011: Canada (Cindy Klassen, Christine Nesbitt, Brittany Schussler)Categories:- 1979 births
- Canadian women's ice hockey players
- Canadian speed skaters
- Lou Marsh Trophy winners
- Olympic gold medalists for Canada
- Olympic silver medalists for Canada
- Olympic bronze medalists for Canada
- Olympic speed skaters of Canada
- Speed skaters at the 2002 Winter Olympics
- Speed skaters at the 2006 Winter Olympics
- Speed skaters at the 2010 Winter Olympics
- People from Winnipeg
- Sportspeople from Manitoba
- Members of the Order of Manitoba
- Canadian Mennonites
- Canadian people of German descent
- Living people
- Canadian sportswomen
- Olympic medalists in speed skating
- 2002
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