Canadian skating great Wotherspoon lends a hand to Norway
4-time sprint world champ hired to help end 3-decade medal drought
In hopes of ending a three-decade Olympic medal drought in long track speed skating's sprint events, Norway has turned to the Canadian who once dominated the short distances to reverse its fortunes.
Jeremy Wotherspoon won a record 67 World Cup races at 500 and 1,000 metres, and was hands-down the world's best sprint skater at the turn of the millennium, capturing the sprint world championship four times in five years between 1999 and 2003. He famously fell short at the Olympics, however, finishing his career with just one medal — a silver in the 500 at the 1998 Nagano Games.
Now 40, Wotherspoon has been the sprint coach for Norway since April and will guide the team into the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Things are already changing under his watch.
"In the past, there were some years that the sprinters would do the same program as the distance athletes but less of it," Wotherspoon says of the Norwegian program that has historically turned out long-distance skaters like the great Johann Olav Koss, who won four Olympic gold medals.
"That's not really sprint training — to cut back long-distance training programs. It's good that they started on the path before I [arrived] because it's a transition that takes some time to put into place."
After initially retiring following the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, Wotherspoon turned to coaching at an academy in the small German city of Inzell, where he worked with athletes from nations without programs or facilities or coaches.
After a failed comeback attempt for the 2014 Olympics, Wotherspoon went back for one more year in Inzell before moving to Norway to coach a developmental team. He was then offered the position with the national program in the spring.
"I knew for the last couple years [of my career] that I was probably going to coach in Germany after I retired," Wotherspoon says of the quick switch from racing to coaching. "It wasn't a long career aspiration of mine to do that. It was more something where the opportunity seemed right and I took it. I'm glad I did."
The coaching life
While he enjoys life as a coach, Wotherspoon has obligations that he didn't have as a skater. He's married to fellow former speed skater and 2006 Olympian Kim Weger and has a daughter, Ella, who has just started first grade in Norway.
Wotherspoon has just under two years left on his contract, after which he'll decide where life will take him next. With a love of the outdoors and cross-country skiing, his family has enjoyed life in Norway so far. While moving back to Canada is always a possibility, staying in Norway is just as strong an option.
"I get tired of travel now because I have a family. Travelling is more tiring in a way for coaches," he says.
"When you're a skater, especially when I didn't have a family yet, it didn't matter to be away, so I wasn't really away from anything. I was away from my own stuff at home but I wasn't leaving my family behind as far as my wife and daughter. They get left behind now."
The speed skating community is a small one, so Wotherspoon still keeps up with the Canadian team.
Kevin Crockett, who finished a step below Wotherspoon on the 500m podium at the 1998 Olympics, is running the Canadian sprint program.
"It's always interesting to see how my old team does, especially now being coached by an old teammate. It was a transition period for them and they did really well last year," says Wotherspoon, who sees a critical time coming for his own team.
"I think after the next couple weekends, the stage will be a little more set for what kind of expectations we can have for events like [February's single distances] world championships and the world sprint championships in Calgary.