Kuck makes name for himself with two silversNick Zaccardi / March 31, 2010
In the past three months, Jonathan Kuck made the U.S. Olympic team, then nearly lost his ticket to Vancouver two weeks before the Winter Games.
He also helped Team USA win a surprise medal in long-track speedskating in Vancouver. To top it off, he finished the season as the second-best speedskater in the world.
Not bad for a college kid who was not well known and only turned 20 on March 14.
“It has been an incredible experience,” Kuck (pronounced Cook) said by phone from Champaign, Ill., where he studies engineering physics at the University of Illinois. “It happened so rapidly.”
Kuck capped his whirlwind stretch by recently grabbing the silver medal at the season-ending World Allround Championships, considered by many the biggest meet in speedskating because it determines the best overall skater over four distances.
For Americans, his most visible skating came at the Olympic Winter Games, where he was part of the silver medal-winning U.S. squad in the team pursuit.
But three months ago, and again two weeks before the Opening Ceremony, it looked as if Kuck wouldn’t make it to Vancouver.
The twisting journey began at the end of December, when top U.S. long-tracker Shani Davis opted not to enter the team pursuit for the second straight Olympics.
The open spot in the four-man pursuit pool went to Kuck, who had not qualified for an individual Olympic event.
Great, right? Kuck would be an Olympian.
Not so fast, the International Skating Union said.
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The sport’s governing body told U.S. Speedskating that it might not accept an Olympic roster that included skaters who only compete in the team pursuit, like Kuck.
To tighten the amount of total athletes, the ISU wanted team pursuit pools to be limited to athletes who were already racing individual events.
Just like that, Kuck’s Olympic hopes were on thin ice.
“That happened kind of suddenly,” said Kuck, who admitted he didn’t know the specifics of the situation. “At first, it sounded like I wasn’t going to get cut from the team. … Had it been explained to me more clearly, I probably would have been more worried.”
Davis again saved Kuck before the drama escalated, this time by opting out of the 10,000-meter event in late January. It allowed Kuck to get a precious and unlikely Olympic spot in an individual event.
The U.S. received two entries in the ultra-demanding 10,000. Ryan Bedford was cemented as one. Chad Hedrick secured the other, but he passed on it to focus on shorter distances.
Davis was next on the list before giving it up for the same reason as Hedrick. Trevor Marsicano, Kuck’s training partner and a better middle-distance skater, also said no thanks to the 10,000.
That left Kuck, the fifth choice, to be offered the spot. He accepted, assuring a trip to Vancouver, even though the 10K wasn’t his best event.
“Eight laps is great for me,” Kuck said of the 3,200-meter team pursuit distance. “It just worked out that I qualified in the 10K.”
Kuck finished a solid eighth in the 10,000 and was one of two U.S. skaters to participate in all three rounds of the team pursuit; Hedrick was the other.
The U.S. upset the top-seeded Dutch in the semifinals and was nipped by the Canadians for gold. Still, silver was quite an accomplishment for three first-time Olympians (Kuck, Marsicano and Brian Hansen) and an aging Hedrick.
“These juniors have big hearts,” Hedrick said at the Games. “Jonathan Kuck, at one point in the [semifinal] race, was actually pushing me.”
Kuck kept pushing in his World Allround Championships debut in late March. He nearly upset Dutch heavy favorite Sven Kramer for the gold medal in speedskating’s overall bragging rights meet.
Kuck skated a personal best in the opening 500 for third place, then took fourth in the 5,000 and won the 1,500 with another personal best.
That put him in first place overall heading into the 10,000, an event owned by then-second-place Kramer, who was going for an unprecedented fourth straight Allround crown.
Kramer won the 10,000 by 15 seconds to overtake Kuck for first place, but Kuck proved his mettle by skating another personal best — by nearly 15 seconds — to hold on for overall second place.
He was the first U.S. athlete to medal at Allrounds since Davis’ bronze in 2007. Kuck came from out of nowhere with just one career World Cup race medal, a bronze, to his name.
In a span of a few weeks, he picked up two unlikely major-meet silver medals.
“They’re both really surprising,” Kuck said. “I don’t think too many people expected us to get a silver medal in the pursuit. I think winning the Allround silver is probably a bigger surprise.
“Everybody cares about the Olympics in the U.S., so the Olympic medal is really very exciting, but it was a team event. World Allround is a very big meet for speedskating, so as a personal accomplishment that might be even bigger.”
The excitement must be tempered somewhat, though. In any sport, world championships that take place right after the Olympics can be misleading. Stars can be worn out from the Olympic Games or skip the event altogether.
A few Olympic medalists skipped World Allrounds, including Davis, the retired Hedrick and Canadian Denny Morrison.
Regardless, it’s a huge confidence booster for Kuck, who also placed second at the 2009 World Junior Championships.
“I think it’s worth getting excited over his performance in terms of someone arriving and validating what they possess,” said Paul Marchese, Kuck’s coach. “I thought he had the ability before all of this.”
It marked the second straight year a U.S. newcomer shocked speedskating at a world meet. In 2009, Marsicano, then 19, won four medals at the World Single Distance Championships.
Kuck, Marsicano and Hansen, all 20, represent the future of U.S. Speedskating. They trained together at Milwaukee’s Pettit Center before the Olympics. Kuck has moved back to Champaign to focus on school for now.
“I think it’s really valuable to have people similar age and similar level,” Kuck said. “We get along with each other off the ice, but when we’re on the ice we want to win.”
For Kuck, the college life presents training problems. There are no long-track ovals in Illinois. He will be limited to strength and conditioning plus sharing ice time with hockey teams at a university rink, where he can only do short-track work.
“We’re still hashing out the details on how to best make this happen,” Marchese said. “He has some school goals, but certainly after getting a taste of how well he did at Vancouver and at worlds, he wants to come back and at least duplicate that and do better. It’s going to be difficult to manage.”
Kuck will be back on the World Cup circuit next season, and Sochi 2014 is a distant goal. It’s important to savor his silvers, though, with limited means of training and the uncertainty that comes with four years between Olympics.
Yet he yearns for more.
“You’ll certainly see and hear more of him,” Marchese said. “He’s certainly not going to go away. He’s not reached his potential yet, and he’ll be a force to deal with.”
Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. Nick Zaccardi is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of any National Governing Bodies.[/img]
