Athlete profile: Steinar Johansen

Posted: Tue February 3, 1998 at 5:00 PM ET

Athlete notes

When he first came onto the Norwegian team, Johansen was nicknamed "The Geist," or the ghost, for his light skin and white hair; and that was before he had his spirit gravely tested...on October 1, 1995, Johansen was mountain biking with four-time Olympic champion Johann Olav Koss (YO-hahn OH-lahv KAHS) when a truck hit Johansen, ran over his right arm and crushed it..."I immediately thought that maybe I'll never skate again," said Johansen, "but Johann quickly applied first aid and called for an ambulance. Johann is a medical student and really calmed be down quite a bit"...Johansen suffered a deformed arm and badly twisted knees...during a 13-week stay in an Oslo hospital, Johansen went through 30 hours of surgery...he had lost all the skin on his right arm; doctors used some skin from his hip but that skin wasn't enough to cover his entire arm...doctors then cut an incision or pocket into his stomach and planted the deformed right arm underneath the stomach skin...after a week, his stomach skin attached to his arm..."It was really weird and uncomfortable," Johansen remembered...he lost a finger and will never totally regain strength and movements of his right hand and wrist -- he cannot write very well...but after a rehab that included learning to use his left hand and fine-tuning his form on the new clap skates, Johansen returned to racing...he found success immediately -- finishing sixth in the 1,500 meters at the 1997 World Single Distance Championships...this season, Johansen spent most of December weakened by a bacterial infection in his leg...after starting the season well, Johansen's times slipped and Norwegian trainers sent him to a physician who said he had had the infection for almost three weeks...Johansen was hospitalized for four days and put on penicilin...in Nagano, Johansen may now lessen his concentration on the 5,000 and totally focus on the 1,500...Johansen's hand injury has forced him to give up mountain biking and wind surfing, his two favorite hobbies..."My right hand is not strong enough to hold on when windsurfing, and I can't squeeze the breaking handle when I'm mountain biking so I don't do them anymore," says Steinar...instead, he works on renovating an 18th-century wooden sailboat he keeps nearby Oslo..."Maybe I'll sail around the world when I finish skating," he says...Steinar now bikes with a road cycle...Johansen remains great friends with Koss, but his idol is American Eric Heiden..."He was my first and only hero, and he still is," says Steinar. "I think he is the best skater that has ever been"... Steinar's father is a tire salesman; his mother is a shoe repairwoman...he has one brother and sister...