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Thursday, September 21
From Russian migrant to US hero
From Craig Lord in Sydney
Lenny Krayzelburg, the man who came to the United States from Russia with love, became the first swimmer since 1984 to win both Olympic backstroke titles when he raced to victory in the 200 metres in an Olympic record of 1min 56.76sec today.
Swimming at the helm of a perfect V-shaped race - the slowest swimmers in the outside lanes the furthest behind the eventual winner - Krayzelburg, the world record holder, was in a class of his own. And though there was less than a second between him and 17-year-old team-mate Aaron Piersol, the silver medal-winner, there was never any doubt who would win.
Piersol touched 0.24sec ahead of Matt Welsh, of Australia. The young American pretender had said before the race that he had trained to win, whereas the others, recoiling from Krayzelburg’s supremacy, had trained to be second. That attitude helped Piersol to fill that spot today.
But the glory belonged to Krayzelburg, who had set Olympic records in the heats and semi-finals on the way to his victory. Victory made Krayzelburg the first man to win both backstroke titles since Rick Carey, of the United States in 1984, and the first at a boycott-free Games since John Naber, of the United States in 1972. The only man ever to retain both titles is Roland Matthes, of the then East Germany, in 1968 and 1972.
Today's win also kept alive Krayzelburg's record of never having been beaten in the Olympic pool in Sydney; last year he set the world records over 50, 100 and 200 metres at the Pan Pacific Championships here.
Krayzelburg, who was born in Ukraine and became an American citizen in 1995, just over five years after his penniless parents emigrated, intends to swim on but is unsure, at 25, whether he will still be around at 29 in Athens.
His success in the pool has made him a well-known name in the United States. People magazine named him one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. Krayzelburg, who trains up to five hours a day in the water, said of the dubious accolade: "It doesn’t matter. I can use as much soap as I want but I still smell of chlorine."
After his victory in the 100 metres, Krazelburg had made the "mistake" of answering honestly when asked whether he credited his early years in the Soviet Union for playing any part in his success.
"Yes," he said. "The Soviet system, the...", and then came the word that the American media were so unprepared to hear, "communist system, taught me discipline and a good work ethic."
"Are you flying the flag for us or not?" asked the reporter from the Los Angeles Times. Made to feel distinctly uncomfortable, Krayzelburg, a leading light in a sport that is ever-more international, ever-less parochial, professed his love of his new country. It seemed not to satisfy Uncle Sam’s bouncers, who had taken umbrage at their new hero’s antecedence.
Krayzelburg refused to yield to such pressure, however. "To be honest, I don’t feel 100 per cent American, and I don’t want to," he said. "It’s important to remember where I came from, where my heritage is from. That’s always going to be a part of me and I’ll carry it to my children and grandchildren."
Krayzelburg dedicated his medals to his Jewish parents, Oleg and Yelena, who left to escape discrimination and to seek a better life for their boy in the United States in 1989. The swimmer’s contract with Speedo holds that his parents would be flown to Sydney for the Games. They were there today to watch their own dedication pay off at the Olympic pool.
Krayzelburg Jr was 13 and had already had four years under the Soviet sports system, training up to five hours a day in the Olympic-sized pool in Odessa that he now says was just as good as any facility he has enjoyed in the States. He had already embarked on a programme that included weights and running.
He was a member of the Red Army Club in Odessa, where coach Vitali Ovakimian singled him out as a prospective future champion. "The country might have been poor, but the athletes always had great training facilities and lived better than others," Krayzelburg said.
When he arrived in the US, neither he, his sister Marsha nor his parents spoke a word of English. It took his father nine months to find a job as a cook at a hospital, while his mother got a job as a pharmacy technician. Their son took a part-time job to help to make ends meet.
After arriving in Santa Monica, California, Oleg enrolled his son in the local swimming club. "It was a good programme," said the swimmer, "but it was too far away.
"We didn’t own a car, so I had to take a bus for 45 minutes and then walk eight blocks. When I was going to school, I was working an after-school job to help out the family, I was studying English. It was almost too much."
Only the encouragement of his parents kept him going. He did and, eventually, Mark Schubert, the coach at the University of South California Trojans, offered him a scholarship. It was a pivotal moment. He failed to make the US team in 1996 just a year after becoming an American but, by 1998, was world champion.
He has now added the Olympic dream to his achievements, but when asked if he was now living the American Dream, he answered: "What's that?"
