U.S. Speedskaters Thrive Under Mueller

MILWAUKEE - Speedskaters always have hated winter. It's the season of their discontent, the time when their legs burn and their lungs protest too much.

And now Peter Mueller has taught them to hate the summer, too.

"There were times they were so tired last summer that they had to sit in a chair to take a shower," said Mueller, a 500-meter grin spreading across his wind-burned face. "They couldn't even stand up in the shower. That's how hard we were working."

Rollerblades. Endurance cycling. Weights. Wind sprints. This was hardly what Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen had bargained for last winter when they asked Mueller to coach them and the other sprinters on the U.S. Olympic team.

At the time, Mueller already had a team - the German national team. He had been coaching the damen und herren for the three years and had another two years left on his contract there.

While he found overtures from Blair and Jansen tempting - they were certain to be heavy medal favorites at the 1992 Olympics in France - he laughed them off.

"I thought it was just for fun, but they kept coming back to me, basically every day," said Mueller, 37, an American, who was the 1976 Olympic champion at 1,000 meters. "I could tell they weren't real happy with the way things were going."

That's putting it mildly. The U.S. team had been in a virtual meltdown since the 1988 Olympics in Calgary.

In the days before the '88 Games, it was clear that much of the

Olympic team had lost confidence in their coach, Mike Crowe. Skaters were filing lawsuits against the speedskating federation just hours before they were supposed to compete. The bureaucratic bungling got so bad that David Cruikshank, the winner of the Olympic trials at 1,000 meters, was bumped from the event and never got to race.

Mueller had had his own problems in the past with U.S. speedskating officialdom, and he watched the fiasco with a knowing eye. Then he moved to Germany.

After Calgary, American skaters continued to have mixed results, especially the splendid sprinters - Blair, Jansen, Nick Thometz, Eric Flaim, Dave Besteman and Peggy Classen.

"I've known Dan and Bonnie and Nick for a long time," said Mueller, who coached the U.S. junior team a decade ago. "They were my skaters, and I've always had an interest in them. Watching them the last few years, I always wondered why the results weren't there."

While Blair and Jansen continued to woo Mueller, they also were lobbying the graybeards of the U.S. International Speedskating Association. Their message: We're the ones who will win the medals, and we want Mueller.

Mueller was wary.

But he met with USISA officials, the Germans let him out of his contract, Crowe was demoted to the junior team and Mueller - just 10 months before the start of the '92 Games - became the Olympic sprint coach.

Stan Klotkowski, the former coach of the Polish national team, is directing the American distance skaters.

Mueller's contract includes an option year that could keep him with the U.S. team through the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. "I got everything in black and white," he said. "They (USISA) let me train with a free hand. Things run the way I want."

Bill Cushman, USISA president, certainly liked what he saw in the Olympic trials in December. The fastest skaters made the team, and there's not a lawsuit in sight.

"We're trying to keep the kids happy," Cushman said. "Peter has done an excellent job. No complaints. No problems."

The Mueller Method certainly seems to be working. Blair, especially, has stood out on the World Cup circuit this season. And Jansen, Thometz and Flaim are rounding into form, right on schedule.

"My skaters are doing well, so they're making me look good," said Mueller, who has moved to the Milwaukee suburbs near the Olympic Ice Rink. "Basically, my job's never been easier. With this group of sprinters, I have the best talent in the world. They'll do their talking with their skates."

There was no talking last summer, just a lot of heavy breathing.

Mueller's Olympic program: Mind-and-body-boggling workouts in the summer - strictly a dry-land torture, with no skating involved - followed by on-ice training for technique in the fall. Now, until the Games start Feb. 8, the skaters are on a race-and-rest program - a "tapering" similar to the regimen followed by world-class swimmers.

It was probably after one of those chair-in-the-shower sessions that Mueller got what he calls "my Son of Sam letter."

Some unnamed skaters - Jansen, Thometz and Blair are the most likely culprits - cut block letters out of a magazine and pasted them crazed-killer-style onto an envelope. The addressee was PETE MUELLER. Inside was an article about Olympic cyclist Davis Phinney, who had achieved remarkable results with lots of rest and very little training.

Mueller laughed and said, "I guess they were a little tired.

"I told them, `You may be hurting now, but pretty soon you're going to be flying.' "

Not everyone is entirely happy with Air Mueller, however. Sprinter Marty Pierce was often AWOL from the group's dry-land training sessions last summer, and Mueller has openly voiced his displeasure with the Olympic veteran from St. Francis, Wis.

"I get a lot of flak because of my training regimen," said Pierce, 25, who tends bar at his father's saloon, Gordie's, in St. Francis. "I think people (on the team) resent me because I don't like training with them as a group. A lot of skaters get all caught up in dry-land training. They forget it's how fast you go on the ice."

Pierce and his sprint mates have been going faster than ever, though, and they're clearly excited about it. With the '92 Winter Games just four weeks away, medal fever seems to have infected everyone.

Mueller mentions the possibility of six or seven medals in Albertville, compared to three they won in Calgary.

"We always knew we had what it takes," Jansen said, "but Pete brings that out in us. When I skate, I want to do well because I know how happy Pete's going to be.

"It's crazy, but it's true."