Eric Flaim
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| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Eric Joseph Flaim | ||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | American | ||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
March 9, 1967 (age 49) Pembroke, Massachusetts, U.S. |
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| Height | 173 cm (5 ft 8 in) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 73 kg (161 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||
| Country | United States | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sport |
Speed skating Short track speed skating |
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| Achievements and titles | |||||||||||||||||||
| Personal best(s) | 500 m: 36.98 (1988) 1000 m: 1:13.53 (1988) 1500 m: 1:52.12 (1988) 3000 m: 4:02.64 (1988) 5000 m: 6:47.09 (1988) 10 000 m: 14:05.57 (1988) |
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Medal record
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Eric Joseph Flaim (born March 9, 1967) is an American former speed skater. He became a world champion in 1988, as well as capturing Olympic silver medals, namely in speed skating at the 1988 Winter Olympics and in short track speed skating at the 1994 Winter Olympics.
Flaim was born in Pembroke, Massachusetts. He began skating at the age of five on a small pond next to his home on Fairwood Drive, Pembroke. He soon starting playing youth ice hockey in his hometown at the Hobomock Arena, later joining travel teams always with the encouragement and support of his father Enrico. His first introduction to the sport started in short track speed skating with the Baystate Speed Skating Club. At 11 years of age in 1979, he pursued both hockey and speed skating for two seasons. Watching the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid and Eric Heiden's astonishing five-gold-medal achievement fueled Flaim's own dream of competing for the U.S. in the Winter Olympics, and he focused on speed skating. After the 1983 season and winning both North American titles for juniors in short track and long track speed skating, he decided to fully pursue long track as short track was not yet an official Olympic sport. In his first major international competition, the Junior World Allround Championships, he placed in the top 30, he competed in two. As a senior, he participated in his first World Allround Championships in 1987 in Heerenveen, Netherlands. He finished 17th, meaning he did not to qualify for the final distance (the 10,000 m) by just one position.
The next year, 1988, Flaim had his best season. In front of a Milwaukee crowd, he won a 1000m gold medal and bronze overall at the World Sprint Championships. Two weeks later, at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Flaim missed medals, placing fourth three times. In his favorite distance he had the disadvantage of starting in the first pair on the 1,500 m and immediately broke Igor Zhelezovski's world record. This was a surprise, as the 20-year-old was not regarded as a leading contender. It would not be the new world record, though, because two pairs later, East German skater André Hoffmann set an even faster time, by just .06 of a second. Flaim's time, however, would remain the second fastest 1,500 m time and so he earned Olympic silver. A highlight for Flaim's career came two weeks later when, in Alma-Ata, then Soviet Union, he became World Allround Champion at the high altitude Medeu stadium. Despite poor outdoor conditions, he skated the best 10,000m of his career to solidify his championship.
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