POV podcast: Cindy Klassen on changing the face of speed skating
6-time Olympic medallist delves into life after such an accomplished athletic career
Her first love was hockey.
Cindy Klassen is known as one of the fastest and most decorated female speed skaters, but she started her athletic career with the goal of making Canada's first women's Olympic hockey team in 1998.
Which goes to show — even for the greatest athletes, things don't always go as planned.
How fast was Cindy Klassen? So fast that she heard doping questions, even though she was a clean a competitor. So fast that she still holds the world record in the 3000-metre. So fast that she's on a Canadian quarter. So fast that she changed the face of speed skating forever.
But, fast as she was, Klassen remarks on how quickly that accomplished skating career has slipped into her past. The six-time Olympic medallist barely recognizes that person who set the skating world on fire.
Klassen's exit from competition was not an occasion for conflicted feelings. She had done what she wanted in the sport when a concussion forced her to retire.
Since then, Cindy Klassen has lived by the same deep spiritual belief that has always guided her, and she made an unpredictable career choice by joining the Calgary police.
Klassen, notoriously shy around the media, opens up about all the highs and lows of her impressive career with Player's Own Voice host, Anastasia Bucsis — who was her teammate for almost a decade.