AS AN OLYMPIC gold-medal speedskater, Dianne Holum often trained alone, driven by her own sense of what it would take to be a winner and her determination to be no less.
As coach of the Olympic and national speedskating teams the last two years, Holum again has frequently felt she is struggling without much support to carry her sport successfully through the 1980s.
When there were no offers from clothing manufacturers to outfit her team members this winter, the Northbrook native got on the phone and didn`t get off until she had secured donations of racing suits. When the team needed new skate-sharpening equipment, she searched and found it, at no charge.
When the speedskaters began the year without a single corporate sponsor, Holum decided to form a foundation and hire a fundraising coordinator, retired speedskater Lydia Stephans, also of Northbrook, to search for dollars.
What the United States International Speedskating Association did not provide, Holum delivered.
”YOU DO FEEL ALONE sometimes, but you can`t let it get you down,” said Holum from West Allis, Wis., where U.S. skaters are competing this weekend for spots on the junior and senior world teams that will travel to Europe next week.
”When I skated, I didn`t have a coach behind me every day, but you have to keep striving. I`ve probably gotten $30,000 to $40,000 worth of stuff that`s been supplied for us that our national governing body didn`t get.
”So I went out and got it. I wasn`t going to sit around and wait for the money from the LAOOC,” she added, referring to the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and surplus money from the L.A. Games that will be distributed to amateur associations, including speedskating, next year.
HOLUM BUBBLES with optimism as she reviews the skaters she will take to Europe for international competition this winter. She recites a list of improved times from a year ago and speaks of a better attitude on a more cohesive team.
Realistically, however, the men`s team is much stronger and deeper than the women`s team, and neither is expected to overwhelm the European and Eastern European skaters.
After the 1984 Olympics, any medal at all would be an improvement. The U.S. speedskaters were shut out for the first time since 1956. However, U.S. skaters didn`t come up totally empty last year. Mary Docter finished third in the 3,000 meters at the World Championships and Mike Woods took second in the 10,000 meters.
”We were relatively happy with our performance in the Olympics,” said Holum. ”A few of the guys who felt they could have won medals were disappointed, but overall we were pleased. People didn`t consider it an accomplishment that we had several people in the top 10, but we did. The year before, we were finishing 20th and 30th, so moving up to fifth and sixth and seventh was a big improvement.
”We did better at the Worlds partly because the weather and ice conditions were better. Some of skating is luck. You have to be lucky to be in one of the first few pairs, when the ice conditions still are good. Mike was lucky to be one of the first pairs at the Worlds.”
BOTH WOODS and Docter, the top female skater last year, have retired. So have Nancy Swider, Connie Paraskevin, Dan Immerfall, Mark Huck and Mike Plant. Katie Class, Dorie Boyce and Stephans are taking a year off and may or may not return next year.
Champaign`s Bonnie Blair, a 19-year-old sprinter, is the women`s team member with the best shot at medals this year. Blair finished 10th at the World Sprints last year, her first in international competition, and is expected to move up considerably. Glenview`s Jan Goldman also returns and is the only experienced all-around competitor on the women`s team.
Nick Thometz, Erik Henriksen, Mark Mitchell, Dan Jansen and Dave Silk lead the men`s team. Jansen, from West Allis, was fourth in the Olympic 500 meters last year, and Thometz, from Minnetonka, Minn., was fourth in the Olympic 1,000 meters. Both return hungry to improve.
That men`s team, claims Holum, is strong, deep and right on schedule with the times she had hoped to see by now. The women, she admits, ”are a different story. We don`t have the numbers. There`s talent but no depth. There just aren`t that many skaters. There aren`t many to choose from.”
HOLUM WON gold and silver medals in the 1972 Olympics and returned to the `76 Olympics as the team`s coach. After coaching Eric Heiden to five gold medals in the 1980 Games, she walked away from speedskating, only too glad to leave behind the sport`s internal bickering and the pressures of her coaching job.
”I was happy to get away from it,” she recalled. ”There was so much pressure after the 1980 Olympics, and I didn`t really know how to deal with it.”
When national coach Bob Corby quit in 1983, the USISA asked Holum to take over. She accepted, and now they might have a hard time getting her to leave. She`s on a one-year contract but will ask for a three-year extension next year to get her through the 1988 Olympics.
”I`ve come back with a new outlook,” she said. ”I enjoy it, and what I really enjoy now are the scientific aspects. That`s making it a lot of fun.” AFTER SOME badgering from Holum, the U.S. Olympic Committee agreed to provide the speedskaters with sports medicine help this year. Two
physiologists are working with the team, doing blood lactate and wind tunnel studies and biomechanical tests never used before by the skaters.
”They`d never been interested in working with our team until this year,” said Holum. The new technology being applied to the skaters has created ”a more positive attitude, because they`re learning so much about themselves and seeing the improvements.”
The attitude last year couldn`t have been much worse. The team was virtually split in two: Many of the male skaters, who wanted Corby as their coach, weren`t speaking with Holum.
One of her goals, besides winning at least one medal at each international meet this winter, is to get her team members to work with, rather than against, one another. At last year`s Olympic trials, a few of the men`s team members were accusing the women of being overweight and out of shape, and the women, in turn, had sharp words for the men.
”You could feel the divisiveness last year,” said Holum.
