Denny Morrison

Denny Morrison (born September 8, 1985 in Chetwynd, British Columbia) is a Canadian speedskater from Fort St. John, British Columbia. His best distance, so far in his career, is the 1500-m, where he held the world record time of 1:42.01 from 14 March 2008 to 6 March 2009. He won 4th places in the Junior World Allround Championships in 2004 and 2005, and a 5th place in his first senior World Allround in 2006. He holds the current 9th place on the allround best-ever Adelskalender (as of January 2008), and is the best Canadian skater on this list.

At the 2006 Winter Olympics, Morrison won a silver medal as part of the Canadian men's speed skating pursuit team. Individually, Morrison won a silver in the 1500-m and a bronze in the 1000-m at a World Cup event in Turin in 2005–06.

In 2007, Morrison won gold in the 1,000 metre event in Calgary in the World Cup finals with a time of 1:07:24. He set a Canadian record, bettering his idol, Jeremy Wotherspoon. In that same weekend, Morrison also won a bronze in the 1,500 metre event.

Morrison also participated in the 2007 World Single Distance Championships, and achieved good results, winning three medals, bronze in the 1500m and silver in the 1000m, losing both times to Shani Davis. In the team pursuit event he, along with Arne Dankers and Justin Warsylewicz, set an early best time, which broke the old team pursuit world record (previously held by Morrison, Dankers and Steven Elm) but the Dutch team of Sven Kramer, Erben Wennemars and Carl Verheijen would go on to beat the time set by Canada by five-tenths of a second, relegating Canada to 2nd place.

In 2008 Morrison topped his result from the year before at the World Single Distance Championships in Nagano, Japan. He took the bronze medal in the 1.000 meters, but won the 1.500m and took home the gold medal.

A week later, at the ING Finale at the Olympic Oval in Calgary, he set a new world record in the 1.500 meters in a time of 1:42.01, beating the old world record held by both Shani Davis and Erben Wennemars.

He competed at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. On February 27, he won a gold medal in the team pursuit along with Lucas Makowsky and Mathieu Giroux.

Though Denny had many short term sponsors leading into his home Olympics, his long standing sponsors remain Nike, CE Franklin and Spectra Energy. He worked with B2Ten and was a CAN Fund recipient in 2009.