Parra shocked spectators with an explosion of speed to earn his record time of one minute, 43.95 seconds, beating the previous record by more than a full second.
"You give up so much, hoping for a moment like this, and it happens," said an emotional Parra following the race. He added that he is proud to be a Hispanic man participating in the Winter Olympic Games. "Winning gold is just fantastic, but to be a Mexican-American winner is something else."
A week earlier, Parra had broken the record for the 5,000-meter event, but had to settle for the silver medal when Jochem Uytdehaage of the Netherlands won the gold with a world record of his own. To come back and defeat Uytdehaage, who took the silver medal in the 1,500, was an incredible accomplishment in itself. The Dutch speedskater was a powerhouse at the Games, going on to set another world record, this time in the 10,000-meter event on February 22.
Speedskating subjects the hips and lower back to tremendous force. Parra, at a powerful 5'4'' and 140 pounds, attributes his ability in part to his training and to the regular chiropractic care he received before and throughout the Games. "I've always been a proponent of chiropractic care," he said. "I've used a lot of other treatments for injuries and pain, but the problem doesn't get fixed until I go to a doctor of chiropractic." Derek and the other world-class athletes representing the U.S. in Salt Lake City, have had regular access to chiropractic care throughout the Games, with ACA member Robin Hunter,DC, on the 2002 U.S. Olympic medical staff.
The speedskater previously won the gold medal in the 1,500-meter event in the World Cup in the Netherlands on November 24, and before taking to the ice was the top inline skater on the planet, a three-time national champion, and a world-record holder in that sport's 1,500-meter event.
Parra began his road to the gold as the fastest kid in the local roller rink in his hometown of San Bernardino, California. A self-proclaimed "working-class" man, Parra earns his living in a hardware store when not skating. Now that the 2002 Olympics are over, he'll have more time to spend with his family, his wife, Tiffany, and their newborn daughter.
His thoughts, no doubt, will for a long time be on his Olympic experience: the excitement of competing against the best in the world to win gold and silver medals, and being selected as one of the athletes to carry the tattered World Trade Center flag during the emotional opening ceremonies.
To those who will never know that personal glory, he can only relate some of his excitement: "It's an incredible feeling, just incredible."
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