For L.A. wrestler, Olympics are just another challenge

BEIJING – Nothing in life has come easily for Henry Cejudo. So why should wrestling be any different?

Born in Los Angeles to undocumented Mexican immigrants who separated when he was 4, Cejudo and his five siblings spent the next dozen years bouncing from California to New Mexico to Arizona, sleeping four to a bed while their mother worked two jobs to keep food on the table.

For them, Christmas was just a day on the calendar.

Things have changed.

Now, he and his family have an even more important day on the calendar: Tuesday, the day the Olympic freestyle wrestling competition begins. Once again, the odds will be stacked against Cejudo, but that is just the way he likes it.

“I’m known for pulling through whenever anything’s wrong,” he said.

Adds his coach, Terry Brands: “He’s a fighter.”

Take June’s Olympic trials, for instance. In the 121-pound final against the more experienced Stephen Abas, a silver medalist in Athens, Cejudo was a point away from elimination after losing the first period. But then he stormed back to win the final two periods, securing a ticket for Beijing.

Cejudo’s first-round opponent will be determined in Monday’s draw, but it’s a deep field that includes former world champions Radoslav Velikov of Bulgaria and Besik Kudukhov of Russia. Cejudo lost in the first round of the world championships last year, which Brands said keeps the young wrestler’s name out of most discussions about medal contenders.

“On paper he’s not. But in my mind he is absolutely a gold-medal contender. No question about it,” Brands said of Cejudo, who has looked great in practice since arriving in Beijing two weeks ago. “They don’t know what he’s capable of because they go on performance. And rightly so. But they don’t consider the kind of kid that he is.

“We don’t care about paper. We don’t care about the Internet. We care about resolve. And that’s why we have the tournament.”

The tournament is pretty much all Cejudo has been thinking about since he and older brother Angel, who failed to make the Olympic team at 132 pounds, began working out at USA Wrestling’s facility in Colorado Springs about four years ago.

“I’ve busted my butt since I moved up to the training center,” Cejudo said. “It’s been hard work. And everything we’ve done was for this. But now that I’m here it’s like it just hit me: I’m an Olympian.

“It feels good at the age of 21 to know that you’re someone that can accomplish that.”

Making the team is only the first step, though. And now that the team is here, Brands is taking pains to make sure Cejudo and the others understand this is a business trip.

“And it’s a big one because it’s once every four years,” Brands said. “But at least the guys that I’m around understand that this is just a stepping stone and the opening ceremonies and all that other stuff doesn’t mean anything, really. There’s a lot bigger fish to fry, a lot more important things that are on the horizon.

“The people that go there and are happy with qualifying shows why they don’t medal a lot of times.”

Besides, Cejudo isn’t just wrestling for himself. His mother, Nelly Rico, who left Mexico City as a teenager looking for a better life, is in Beijing to watch her son.

“I’m going for that yellow medal. That’s the real goal,” Cejudo said. “I just look at what we went through and how hard we worked, how hard my mom and my family has worked and sacrificed for me and my brother. That just pushes me another notch.

“It’s been a rocky round but it’s worth it, man. It’s worth everything we’ve done and everything [that’s] happened to us.”

 kevin.baxter@latimes.com