Henning, Anne (1955—)

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Henning, Anne (1955—)

American speed skater. Born on September 6, 1955, in Raleigh, North Carolina; daughter of William Henning (a hospital consultant) and Joanne Henning.

Won the gold medal in the 500 meters at the World championship in Helsinki, Finland (1971); won the gold medal in the 500 meters at the World Sprint championship in Inzell, Germany (1971); set a new world record in both the 500- and 1000-meter events in Davos, Switzerland (1972); won the gold medal in the 500 meters and the bronze medal in the 1,000 meters at the Olympic Games in Sapporo, Japan (1972).

Prohibited from competition in the local Little League program, Anne Henning set her sights on becoming the fastest woman skater in the world. Fortunately, her hometown of North-brook, Illinois, boasted an excellent speed-skating program, due mostly to the efforts of Ed Rudolph, who was the park commissioner and a world-class speed-skating coach. (By 1975, Northbrook was known as the "Speed Capital of the World" and had trained twenty-nine national champions, eight world team members, and ten Olympic team members, of which eight were women.) Rudolph first saw Henning skate when she was ten and recognized her talent immediately. "I saw nothing but gold medals dancing before my eyes," he later said.

With her parents' approval, Henning began training with Rudolph and, for the next six years, devoted her life to skating. It was always a struggle, and she often wanted to quit. "For a while I wouldn't go out to practice," she recalled. "Then my parents and Mr. Rudolph sat down with me and let me see how close I was." At age 12, she won the U.S. National championship in both the 500 and 1,000 meters. At 15, after setting speed-skating records in both the women's 500 and 1,000 meters, she began to prepare for the 1972 Winter Olympic Games at Sapporo, Japan.

Henning carried the hopes of the entire skating world with her to Japan, and the pressure was nearly unbearable. She won the gold medal in the 500 meters event, but not without incident. Halfway through her heat, she and her opponent, Canadian Sylvia Burke , almost collided while taking a curve. To avoid contact, Henning let Burke pass, losing precious tenths of a second. Although she eventually won the heat, she feared that subsequent competitors might better her time. "I was so upset I wanted to go home right then," she recalled. The judges, however, decided that she had been fouled and let her race again. Knocking four-tenths of a second off her time, she took the gold, although she later learned that her first time of 43.7 would have also put her in first place. Exhausted both physically and mentally from the first event, Henning finished third in the 1,000 meters, winning the bronze medal. (Dianne Holum , another Northbrook resident and student of coach Rudolph, won the gold medal in the 1,500-meter event.)

With the World Games looming later that winter, Henning decided that she had had enough. "I'd packed a lifetime of energy into six years and I didn't have any more left," she said. Hanging up her skates, Henning entered Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin, to major in art and lead a more normal life. The years she spent training for the Olympics then haunted her. "I have this feeling that I missed a part of my life I'll never be able to recall," she said, at age 19. "Would I do it again? Nope."