Speed skater Cindy Klassen announces retirement from skating

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This article was published 20/06/2015 (3994 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the end, the only thing Winnipeg’s Cindy Klassen ever did slowly as a speedskater was retire.

Nine years after she reached the pinnacle of her sport — winning five Olympic medals at the 2006 Winter Olympics and being anointed in Torino by IOC president Jacques Rogge as “the woman of the Games” — Klassen finally hung up her skates, telling a packed news conference at a Winnipeg hotel Saturday morning she’d at last decided she’d had enough.

“I’m truly grateful for all the memories, and while records fall and memories tarnish, the friendships I’ve made through the sport will last forever,” said the 35-year-old Klassen during a prepared speech.

Afterward, Klassen told reporters she figured she’d retire after she didn’t qualify for the 2014 Games in Sochi, but decided to take last winter off and do some soul-searching before making her retirement official.

“After I didn’t qualify for the 2014 Games — I didn’t even try out for the team because of my concussion — I kind of had in the back of my mind that maybe it was time to hang up my blades,” said Klassen.

“But I wasn’t 100 per cent sure. Throughout the last year I was feeling it, but I just wanted to be 100 per cent sure that I was ready to take that step. So now it’s been a year, my legs have just shrunk,” Klassen laughed, “and I’m just ready to move on and put speedskating behind me.”

Klassen, who grew up in Winnipeg and got her start skating at the Sargent Park Oval, resides in Calgary these days and says she’ll focus on finishing a psychology degree at the University of Calgary she started two decades ago.

“I’m usually the oldest in my classes,” Klassen joked. “It’s kind of funny the odd time another student might catch a glimpse of my student ID card and be shocked to see that my student number has two less digits than theirs.”

Klassen won her first of six Olympic medals at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, taking bronze in the 3,000 metres. She followed up four years later in Torino with five Olympic medals — including gold in the 1,500 metres — in what was a record-setting performance for a Canadian at an Olympic Games.

A subsequent knee surgery and a near-fatal car accident in 2008 involving her sister Lisa derailed Klassen’s training for the 2010 Winter Olympics, and while she competed in Vancouver, she didn’t medal and was disappointed in her results.

Klassen continued to compete after Vancouver but never did regain the form she showed in Torino. A concussion she sustained while inline skating in 2013 ended her dream of competing in a fourth Olympics in Sochi.

Klassen’s retirement announcement coincided with the annual general meeting of Speed Skating Canada, which is taking place in Winnipeg this weekend.

Winnipeg’s Susan Auch, a three-time Olympic medallist in speedskating and the current vice-president of Speed Skating Canada, told the news conference about the most common question she gets asked when people find out she knows Klassen.

“‘Is she really that nice?’ ” Auch says people ask her. “And she is, Cindy is.”

Denny Morrison, who with Klassen’s retirement is now the most decorated active Canadian speedskater, said watching a video of Klassen’s accomplishments shown during Saturday’s news conference was both humbling and an inspiration.

“I might be the most decorated now, but I don’t hold a (candle) to what Cindy has accomplished in her career. Total medals, Olympic medals, world records — the list goes on and on and on,” said Morrison.

“It’s humbling but it’s also inspiring. For any level of athlete, whether it’s young girls getting into sport, or someone like me as an Olympic medallist already. It just makes me want to achieve more.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek