The magnitude of Heiden's achievement has been lost on many Americans, though Heiden is an icon in the speedskating community and, in particular, in Europe where the sport is more highly regarded. Few speed skaters have won competitions in both sprint and long-distance events. (For that matter, few athletes have done so in other sports, such as swimming and track.)

Beth Heiden, Eric's sister, won a bronze medal at the 1980 games as well, giving the Heiden family exactly half of the medals won by the United States at those games.

During his short speed skating career, Heiden also won 3 World Championships and 4 World Sprint Championships. He 3 times broke the 1000 metres world record, 1 time in the 1500 metres, 3000 metres and 10000 metres, and he broke the points world record in both allround and the sprinting distances. Heiden finished his speed skating career by finishing second behind Hilbert van der Duim at the 1980 World Allround Championships in Heerenveen. Heiden stood at the top place of the Adelskalender for an impressive time period of 1495 days, and won the Oscar Mathisen-award four times in a row from 1977 until 1980. As of today he still is the only skater who has won the award four times.

Later, both Eric Heiden and his sister became professional cyclists, winning a few American professional races and Eric taking part in the Tour de France once. Eric still holds the official record on one of the local benchmark climbs in Woodside, California: Old la Honda Rd.

Heiden became an orthopedist, and has worked for the U.S. national team, in attendance during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games when Casey FitzRandolph was the first American man since Heiden to win a gold in the men's 500 meter. Heiden was asked to carry the torch during the opening ceremony, but declined because the 1980 U.S. men's hockey team was going to light the flame. He publicly wondered whether he would have had to compete in some of the women's speedskating events in 1980 to get the honour