Dan Jansen
American speed skater
Daniel Erwin Jansen (born June 17, 1965) is a retired American speed skater. A multiple world champion in sprint and perennial favorite at the Winter Olympics, he broke a ten-year Olympic jinx when he won a gold medal in his final race, which was the 1,000 meters in the 1994 Winter Games.
Early career
Dan Jansen is the youngest of nine children born to Geraldine (née Grajek) Jansen (1928–2017) a nurse, and Harry Jansen (1928–2015), who retired from the police department as a lieutenant detective. His family is Roman Catholic. He has three sisters who are nurses. Two of his four brothers are police officers and one is a firefighter. He graduated from West Allis Central High School. Inspired by his sister Jane (1960–1988), he took up speed skating while growing up. He set a junior world record in the 500-meter race at age 16, and finished 16th in the 1,000 meters and fourth in the 500 meters at the 1984 Winter Olympics.
Competitive history
In 1988, Jansen became the World Sprint Champion before heading to the 1988 Winter Olympics, where he was a favorite for the 500- and 1,000-meter races.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1159087. VIAF identifies the subject as 52495545. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1965, 1994, 1928 and 2017.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dan Jansen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.