A hockey player since the age of 10 and a short track speed skater since 12 with the Cambridge Speed Skating Club, Derrick Campbell joined the Canadian National Team in 1989, but would have to wait nearly a decade for Olympic success. Prior to the 1994 Winter Olympics he was selected as the gold medal favorite in the 500m event by Sports Illustrated, but ended up placing eleventh after a fall in the semi-finals. In the 1,000m competition he led for a long time, but was knocked down by Nicky Gooch with three laps left in the final. Gooch was disqualified, so all Campbell needed to do was finish the race to earn bronze. Upon the completion of the event, however, it was discovered that the lap counter had failed to display the correct number of laps remaining, and thus Campbell had actually skated one lap too few. To make matters even worse, his 5,000m relay team failed to reach the podium by only one spot, placing fourth.
Undeterred, Campbell continued training hard and placed third overall at that year’s World Championships. At the 1997 World Championships he won gold in the 500m event and was third overall again. The following year he won gold medals in the 5,000m relay events at the 1998 Winter Olympics and World Championships, as well as an additional gold in the team competition. His career began its dénouement at this point and he retired in 2000. He was inducted into the Cambridge, Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1998 and served as a representative to the International Skating Union as a skater from that year through 2000. After his retirement he began a successful career as a skating coach and was team leader and coach for the U.S. National Team in 2006. He received the Petro-Canada Coaching Excellence Award in 2007 and 2008 and was the 2007 Québec Coach of the Year. He now coaches for the Canadian national team and was finalist for Coach of the Year at the 2008 Canadian Sport Awards.
Canada