Chad Hedrick
Chad Hedrick started out as an inline skater, and was one of the greatest US roller speed skaters ever, winning 50 World Championships, 93 US Championships, and setting multiple world records. He revolutionized inline speed skating with his technique called the double-push, which is now standard in inline speed skating. We will report about this technique in the section on speed skating on inline skates because this technique has not been taken over in speedskating.
After watching fellow inline skater Derek Parra win two medals at the 2002 Winter Olympics, Hedrick decided to switch to ice speed skating. After the Dutch skaters Rintje Ritsma and Gianni Romme won the All-round championships from 2000- 2003, Chad Hedrick won the World Allround title in 2004 after only two years of skating on ice. For this success he was awarded the Oscar Mathisen Statuette of 2004. This price was given to the speed skater with the best results in that year.
Between then and the Torino Olympics, Hedrick established himself among the best long-track skaters in the world, setting world records in the 1,500, 5,000, and 10km in November-December 2005. In 2006, Chad Hedrick won the 5,000 m and a bronze medal in the 1,500 and silver in the 10K. He was the best skater of the world from November 2005 through March 2007.
He surprised the Dutch public by his unusual style of skating: the “double push”. For ice speed skaters that was a very unusual movement. He made a push with the leg which ice skaters would use to glide. The question was if he obtained in this way more speed than the ice skaters. That seemed to be the case because he won nearly all races on ice he skated in that period. In inline skating all speed skaters use nowadays this technique. In the video below where Chad Hedrick is skating on inline skates one can see how different his movement is from the movement of the speed skaters on ice.
After watching fellow inline skater Derek Parra win two medals at the 2002 Winter Olympics, Hedrick decided to switch to ice speed skating. After the Dutch skaters Rintje Ritsma and Gianni Romme won the All-round championships from 2000- 2003, Chad Hedrick won the World Allround title in 2004 after only two years of skating on ice. For this success he was awarded the Oscar Mathisen Statuette of 2004. This price was given to the speed skater with the best results in that year.
Between then and the Torino Olympics, Hedrick established himself among the best long-track skaters in the world, setting world records in the 1,500, 5,000, and 10km in November-December 2005. In 2006, Chad Hedrick won the 5,000 m and a bronze medal in the 1,500 and silver in the 10K. He was the best skater of the world from November 2005 through March 2007.
He surprised the Dutch public by his unusual style of skating: the “double push”. For ice speed skaters that was a very unusual movement. He made a push with the leg which ice skaters would use to glide. The question was if he obtained in this way more speed than the ice skaters. That seemed to be the case because he won nearly all races on ice he skated in that period. In inline skating all speed skaters use nowadays this technique. In the video below where Chad Hedrick is skating on inline skates one can see how different his movement is from the movement of the speed skaters on ice.
This skating style may be useful in inline skating because the surface is not so smooth as the ice. But to realize this second push the first push is less strong and one does not glide so long on the other skate as could be done on ice. Therefore, his skating style was not taken over by the ice speed skaters so far. However, this may occur if more inline skaters are going to participate in Ice speed skating.