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Thursday, September 21
Krayzelburg finds pools of gold
By Adrian Wojnarowski
Special to ESPN.com
SYDNEY, Australia --- Lenny Krayzelburg was a beleaguered boy, 15 years
old and peering to his parents at the kitchen table with the saddest little
eyes. This was 1988, in the tiny apartment in Studio City, Calif., where a
mother and father, a son and daughter, were fighting for a share of the long,
lost American Dream.
"I can't make it," Lenny said to Oleg and Yelena, telling them these long
days and nights of high school, a part-time job cleaning the community pool,
and evenings of swim practice had taken its toll. He had to have an
education, needed a job, so he wanted to stop swimming. Just quit. They had
come to the United States out of communist Russia, Jews desperate for a place
to practice religion without persecution, where the world for their two
children was one of hope instead of despair.
|  | | Lenny Krayzelburg kisses the gold medal he won in the
100-meter backstroke. |
Swimming was his chance, his ticket to a scholarship, to a good life.
Before Oleg found a job in the United States, before his family could afford
a car, he had marched Lenny down to the Santa Monica Swim Club and plopped
him into the pool. Once, a coach, Vitaly Ovakimian, told Oleg his son had the
promise of an Olympic backstroker and he never forgot it. Every day, Lenny
had to drive 45 minutes on the bus, walk eight blocks and practice with the
golden boys of Southern California hardly able to understand a word out of
his mouth.
So, yes, wasn't it perfect this was the memory flashing through the mind
of the mother and son at the Sydney Aquatic Center? In the stands, Yelena
watched with her husband and daughter, Marsha, and down on the medal stand,
Lenny listened to the Star Spangled banner and remembered his old man at the
kitchen table in Studio City, inspiring him to stay with swimming and chase a
good life in America.
"That wasn't an easy thing to do, to move to another country with
absolutely no guarantees," Krayzelburg said later, after his Olympic record
time of 53.72 delivered him gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke. "They had
the guts to make the move."
Krayzelburg is a living, breathing testament to the changing world, a
young athlete trained under the eyes of the communist sports machine, groomed
to be an Olympic swimmer as a young boy at the Red Army Club in Odessa. They worked Krayzelburg hard in the Soviet Union, pushing him,
as a 10 year old, to swim five hours a day, run and lift weights. When the
Krayzelburgs left for the United States with their son, 13 years old, Lenny
estimated 95 percent of the elite young swimmers had dropped out of the
program in Russia.
When he found his way to the United States, the coaches weren't so
impressed. He couldn't get one scholarship offer out of high school, before a
year at a junior college earned him a ride to the University of Southern
California.
This was a long hard trip to the medal stand in Sydney, to be a sure a
victory beyond the narrow lanes of a swimming pool. Could this have happened
10 years ago, America embracing a strapping blond, blue eyed Russian wearing
the stars and stripes on the medal stand? All people had to do was watch the
emotion on his face, in his eyes, as they raised the American flag in the
Aquatic Centre on Monday night.
For his family, America is home now. They've come to love the way of
life, the opportunity and yet never, ever forget a far-away people and place
that shaped them. After his race on Monday night, a Russian reporter spoke
up, asking Krayzelburg about his old country's role in the most glorious
moment of his life. It is a better world, understand, when Lenny Krayzelburg
understands he doesn't have to dismiss his Russian roots to be loved here.
The Evil Empire is dead, the Cold War past and Lenny Krayzelburg --- the
world record holder in the 100- and 200-meter backstrokes, a 24 year-old
possessing the possibility of leaving Sydney with three gold medals --- is
allowed to embrace every part of his history, his story, his self.
"Being in the Soviet system under Communism still played a big part in
who I am today as a person and an athlete," he said. "It stays with you the
rest of your life -- the work ethic, the dedication."
Nine years ago, an Olympic gold medalist turned to his parents and told
them he just couldn't make it. They had come a long way, too far to give up
on a dream. Looking back, Lenny was right. These Krayzelburgs, they have guts.
Adrian Wojnarowski is a columnist for the Bergen (N.J.) Record and a regular
contributor to ESPN.com
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