HALL RISES FROM DEPTHS OF DESPAIR TO WIN GOLD
Gary Hall Jr, whose tale comes straight from the Book of Job, reached the
end of a journey from hell to heaven last night, embracing the sick father
he had been isolated from and the catharsis of a shared Olympic victory
with his 19-year-old American training partner Anthony Ervin over 50 metres
freestyle.
The success of Phoenix's finest sprinters - only the second shared
gold medal in swimming history - rose from the ashes of the great Alexander
Popov's demise, their 21.98sec triumph lone in clipping the wings of the
flying Dutchman, Pieter van den Hoogenband, who was third in 22.03sec. It
also put an end to Popov's potential as the first male swimmer to win the
same title at three Games.
Russia's Rocket, who beat Hall into second in both the 50 and 100 metres
in Atlanta four years ago, found himself in sixth, just ahead of Britain's
Mark Foster and a stranger to the medal rostrum for the first time since he
made his international debut in 1990. Head bowed, he sloped off silently
into the shadows like a lion who had lost his pride to the pretenders.
Hall's fight for survival on the plain of pain he has endured since
Atlanta, will become the stuff of Olympic legend. For while all seemed
alright on the night, like a well-rehearsed play, behind the scenes was a
Hall of horrors. His father, also Gary and the man who finished second to
Mark Spitz in the 200 metres butterfly in Munich 1972, collapsed two days
ago, was rushed to a Sydney hospital and received emergency treatment as
his blood pressure dropped to a critically low level.
"I said 'whatever it takes, just get me so that I can be at that pool
when my son swims'," said Hall senior, a leading eye surgeon who as a
swimmer established 11 world records won gold, silver and bronze medals at
the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Games. His condition was a side-effect of Sydney
'flu, "cost all of 80 bucks to put right" and was trivial when set against
what had gone before.
Hall Jnr will turn 26 on Tuesday. He may never have seen the day, after
telling his girlfriend, Elizabeth Petersson, that he wanted to kill
himself, no longer able to cope with the chaos of a Californian lifestyle
lived in the dry heat of Arizona amidst the splendour and hissing of
sprinklered summer lawns that his maternal grandfather Charlie Keating had
helped to build as a resort and real estate tycoon before being imprisoned
for what the courts said was his part in the $3 billion savings and loans
crisis in the 1980s.
Keating won an appeal and was released from jail in 1997. He had
watched Gary Jnr win his two wilver medals and two gold medals in relay on
the television in his cell. The swimmer dedicated some of his success to
Keating. In two years that followed his grandfather's release, Hall was
diagnosed a serious diabetic and daily injections became part of life's
diet, while his favourite aunt died of a heart attack at 39.
Hall took solace in a number of diversions, including street drugs,
which added to his woes when he tested positive for Marijuana and was
suspended by Fina, swimming's global authority. He won an appeal and Fina
has since changed its rules on the substance.
That is when Hall Jnr headed to Costa Rica with Petersson to "escape".
He had something rather final in mind and swam out to sea so far that
Petersson thought he had taken his life. She wrote of that painful moment
in an Internet diary. The swimmer returned to shore and the couple will
marry in Europe "soon".
Hall's father told The Times last night: "The diabetes was the last straw
for him, but you know he's turned around and that whole thing with Fina was
the best thing that happened to Gary. Because of it he is now clean and has
changed his life. I am proud of the way he has handled the diabetes. He
wants to hold himself up as a role model for sufferers around the world.
The Gary Hall Jnr of the past is past and he's a new kid."
Hall Jnr, who is studying to be a doctor, said: "It's very nice to
overcome such adversity. The diabetes was really a disturbing factor, so to
win at the Olympics was not expected. Its a tremedous statement on what the
body can do and how you can live your life with the benefit of modern
medicine."
The question for the first joint victor since Americans Carrie
Steinseifer and Nancy Hogshead won the 100 metres freestyle in Los Angeles
1984, was could he live with the US media. Faced with a series of questions
about his parentage - his father is black and his mother white and Jewish -
Ervin put the probers in their box: "I've always been proud of my
heritage...it's like they're trying to pin me down on this. But I feel that
in American society today, someone having diverse blood would not be a big
thing."
He and Hall were big things last night, having helped to secure
supremacy of the pool for the US in the Australian lion's den.
CRAIG LORD
Sunday Times
