Casey FitzRandolph

 

At the age of three, Casey FitzRandolph first stepped onto the ice as a munchkin to perform in a Wizard of Oz on Ice production. At the age of four he took up hockey, but realized that he didn’t like the amount of time he had to spend in his hockey pads. One day during the winter of 1979-1980 he heard an ad for the Madison area All-City speed skating meet that would be taking place on the Vilas Park Lagoon. He figured since he had tried other ice skating sports, he would try speedskating. FitzRandolph instantly took to the sport and didn’t stop until he reached his goal of becoming an Olympic Gold Medalist 22 years later.

FitzRandolph had myriad accomplishments throughout his skating career. In 1997 at the World Sprint Championships he won bronze overall, and a silver medal in the 1000m. That same year he lowered Dan Jansen’s American records in the 500m and 1000m and bettered his own American records many times after. In 2001 FitzRandolph won the overall silver medal at the World Sprint Championships, winning gold in the 500m.

A 6 time US National Sprint champion, FitzRandolph established new Olympic Records in the 500m Speedskating race at the 1998 and 2002 Olympic Games. In Nagano, he became the first person to skate the 500m in under 36 seconds in an Olympics. Four years later he set a new Olympic Record of 34.42 seconds at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City…a mark that stood for 16 years until it was edged by .01 at the 2018 Games. In winning his gold he achieved his childhood dream of winning an Olympic gold medal.

FitzRandolph currently resides in Cross Plains, Wisconsin with his wife Jennifer and their children Sawyer (16) and Cassidy (14), who compete nationally in soccer and cheer, respectively.  Casey loves exploring the mental side of sport with his children, and enjoys spending time as a family at their farm and cabin in rural Wisconsin when not playing sports.  Casey’s post-skating career surrounds advising business clients of risk as an Account Executive and Partner at M3 Insurance.