Glenview Speed Skater Makes 3rd Olympic Team

GLENVIEW, IL — Glenview native Brian Hansen qualified for his third Olympics at the long track speedskating trials for the U.S. team by finishing second at the 1,500 meters race Saturday with a time of 1 minute, 46.64 seconds.

Trained at the Northbrook Speed Skating Club, Hansen has lived in Milwaukee – where last weekend's trials were taking place – for the past six years.

"I'm super excited and I couldn't be more happy to have these fans here helping me out and cheering me on," he said after the race. "I'm just so excited to be representing the US again and be going to Korea for my third games."

Hansen, 27, won a silver medal in the team pursuit event in at the 2010 games in Vancouver. He finished in seventh and ninth place four years later in Sochi, still the top U.S. finisher.

Since then, he took a couple years off to finish a business degree at the University of Colorado, where he graduated last spring. Instead of skating, he spent time downhill skiing and mountain biking before deciding to return to the sport.

Hansen said it was a special treat to qualify in front of home fans.

"We're so used to competing in the Netherlands where its a bunch of Dutch, and they still cheer us on, but this is a true local crowd and that's something really excited to be skating in front of everybody here," he said.

On the final day of the trials Sunday, Hansen took the top spot in the new mass-start event, which features all skaters on the ice at once. He finished with 7 minutes, 48.24 seconds on the 16-lap, 6,400-meter group race that will be making its Olympic debut as a medal event.

"That is one race that you never know what's going to happen," he said."I'm happy that I was able to pull out the win, and I'm happy to be representing the U.S. at the Olympics in that race."

Hansen has nine medals at the world cup level, but no trips to the podium since 2014.

He said this year would be a different challenge.

"I'm in a very different position than I was going into Sochi," he said. “Some of the people I was competing against in 2014, they got a little faster, and after taking two years off, I got a little slower."

I’m going to the Olympics! Huge thanks to everyone that came out to support me!! #RoadToPyeongChang #HomeCrowd pic.twitter.com/jaqAtlEsFt
— Brian Hansen (@BrianTHansen) January 7, 2018

Also at the U.S. long track trials, Chicagoan Shani Davis, who started speedskating at the Robert Crown Center in Evanston, qualified for his fifth Olympics in the 1,000 meters.

Earlier, at the short track trials, Glenview native Lana Gehring, 27, was the first skater to qualify, earning a ticket to her second Olympics.

They'll all compete at the 12,000-seat Gangneung Ice Arena during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, Feb. 9-25 in South Korea.

_{Top photo: Brian Hansen during the U.S. Olympic long track speedskating trials, Sunday, Jan. 7, 2018, in Milwaukee | AP Photo | John Locher}