Athlete profile: Jan Bos

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

Athlete notes

He very well may have the shortest name of any 1998 Winter Olympian, so it comes as no surprise that Bos will compete in Nagano's sprint events...despite its rich speed skating tradition, the Netherlands has won only two Olympic medals over both the 500 and 1,000m events and Bos, the 1994 world junior champion, is a solid candidate to add to that number...in his second season on the World Cup circuit, the then-21 year-old Bos finished second to Norwegian Ådne Søndrål in the 1,000m at last year's World Single Distance championships..."I was feeling pretty good two weeks before Singles in Innsbruck," recalls Bos of his best performance to date. "And (after) I finished fifth in the first 500m race, I gained more confidence"...Bos also improved considerably last year in his showing at the World Sprint Championships, moving up 11 spots from his 24th place of two years ago..."I just started to think more as a sprinter," says Bos in attempting to explain his season-to-season improvement. "I did more weights and I added squats (in addition) to the leg press. The power helped everywhere -- I can push harder in the straights and I maintain my speed in the corners"...Bos' continued ascent toward the ranks of the world's best sprinters depends largely on his, and his competitors' ability to adjust to the new clap skates..."The straights were really good from the beginning but the curves were difficult," says Bos of his form on the revolutionary skates, on which he began skating last February. "But now it feels better. My curves are always pretty good because my technique is the best in the corners. I do not lose any speed in the corners"...his adjustment in the start, where the different feel of the clap skate has its most dramatic effect in the sprint events, has been much smoother than that of many competitors, including two-time world Sprint champion Russian Sergei Klevchenya...according to Bos, "Klevchenya is really struggling. He was last in the 500 in Group 1 in Calgary," where Bos posted a time of 35.77 the penultimate weekend of November...surprisingly enough, Bos had initially intended to be an all-around skater..."I thought I was (would be) an all-arounder as a junior," claims Bos, "but they put me on the junior sprint team. That was not my choice"...in retrospect, Bos is grateful for the judgment of the junior team coaches -- "I hate skating long distances," he says...looking forward to the Olympic competition at the M-Wave, which hosted last year's World All-Around Championships, Bos expects the aura of his first Olympics to motivate him to skate his best..."You have to be really focused to skate a personal best and to do as best as possible," says Bos. "Maybe I need the pressure -- skating in the Olympics is different from a World Cup"...Bos started skating with wooden skates when he was four years old and learned to skate on a canal that surrounds a castle in his hometown of Hierden..."Everybody in my family rides horses," says Bos. "I didn't want to so I started (skating). I still like to skate on the lakes and canals when I go home for Christmas"...Bos joined a club when he was 10 years old and the junior national team at the age of 16...his father works as a civil engineer while his mother is a homemaker...Jan is one of four children and his youngest brother, now 14, is skating competitively at the local level -- "When I am at home, I coach him and train with him," says Jan...he is not related to former Dutch distance skater Thomas Bos...like Dutchman Bart Veldkamp, who now skates for Belgium, Bos has dabbled in competitive cycling...he raced between the ages of 14 and 18, but decided to stop in order to concentrate on speed skating...he does still name cycling as a hobby, along with spending money on clothing and compact discs...Bos speaks English...