AN OLYMPIC BOXER’S LIFE AND LEGACY : Frenchman’s Death Provokes Questions

He was feeling good the day he died.

His appetite was strong. He had no complaints. He was lying in a hospital bed near his hometown of Villefranche, France , thinking of what he would eventually go home to: His wife of three months. A loving family. A mangement position in his father’s textile company. He was 24 years old and, in some ways, life was just beginning.

He would recover, his determined eyes were telling those who had come to his bedside. This was just another bout, this leukemia. And he knew a lot about fighting. Fighting had been his life.

He had lost boxing matches before. In the 1984 Olympics at Los Angeles, he had lost on a technical knockout in the first round of his only fight. But he always recovered, and succeeded. Through athletics he had learned that life dishes out bad times between the good.

Vincent Sarnelli was not a popular fighter when he was named to the 1984 French Olympic boxing team. He was not a charismatic boxer who carried a nation’s pride with every swing. He was a fighter’s factory worker--punch in, punch out.

But that was enough because he loved boxing. Oh, how he loved it, how he lived for the clang of the bell announcing the start of the next round. His heart was in the right place--right there in the ring with raised gloves and sweaty forehead.

No, Sarnelli was no more a French hero than Queen Elizabeth. But he was a boxer. And he loved it.

When he was alive.

In the year since he died of acute leukemia, Sarnelli has become something of a cause celebre in the European boxing community.

“My son risked his life,” Orlando Sarnelli, his father, told French reporters last year. “I want his case to become an example.”

The French and Italian press have made Sarnelli, in death, a noted figure through television, newspaper and magazine reports.

The Sarnellis say they have started a long process of suing French and Italian boxing officials, contending that Vincent, unknowingly, was allowed to compete even though he was suffering from blood cancer. They charge that the medical examinations he underwent before competing should have discovered the disease before it became acute.

Before Vincent died, he said: “Papa, don’t let them damage boxing. It (the disease) hasn’t got anything to do with them.”

French boxing officials in Paris deny that the Sarnellis are suing them, although such a suit has been publicized in the French media.

“There is no lawsuit, as far as I know,” said Bernard Restout, president of the French amateur boxing federation. “I have never heard anyone speak of one. We did not know that he had leukemia when he took part in the Olympics. If we had known, he would not have been allowed to take part in the Games.”

Whether Sarnelli made his condition worse by boxing may never be known. But by publicizing his death, Orlando hopes to ensure that other boxers receive more medical scrutiny before competing.

“I want a lot of people to become interested in the health of young boxers,” said Orlando in a telephone interview. “I think boxing aggravated the leukemia. He had a form of chronic leukemia but as a result of this competition it transformed into acute leukemia.”

Blood specialists say they are uncertain whether physical activity would cause any worsening of leukemia.

“If he wasn’t in remission there’s a much greater risk of a hemorrhage if he competes in a sport such as boxing,” said Dr. Lewis M. Slater of the UC Irvine Medical Center. “But when he’s in remission, he really can do what he wants.”

Doctors also said a blood test would not always show whether a person has leukemia. They also would need a bone marrow test to verify the result.

Col. Don Hull, the former president of the International Amateur Boxing Federation (AIBA), said there are no requirements on the thoroughness of the medical examinations boxers must be given before being allowed to compete in the Olympics.

But boxers must have medical clearance from their own countries, from AIBA doctors and from doctors at the site of the competition, Hull said. He said that the most complete examinations must be done by the federation doctors.

“There’s a big difference between physically fit and medically fit,” he said. “AIBA checks to see if they are physically fit. I don’t think any boxer gets into the ring with anything active at the moment. A lot of dormant things no one knows about won’t be detected. They won’t be able to find them through AIBA testing.”

French doctors told reporters that it was difficult to determine whether Sarnelli, whose family has no history of the disease, was suffering from leukemia at the time of the Olympics because the progress of the disease was slow.

Sarnelli said he first noticed fatigue when he began training with the French national team in 1984. He thought it was because of the extensive training. Before he died, he told French reporters he often was tired after workouts.

“I needed sleep at all costs,” he said.

But Sarnelli didn’t worry about the fatigue, the occasional headaches and nausea. He was 22 at the time, handsome and, from all appearances, healthy. He had no reason to suspect that he might have any serious ailments.

Sarnelli, the third of four children, always was athletic. He was a competitive swimmer as a youth, but found his niche in boxing. After his first fight at 18, he improved quickly and within a year made the French amateur tournament, a feat that only added to his feeling of invincibility. By 1984, he was France’s amateur middleweight champion and primed to make the Olympic team.

Still, Jean-Michele Rouet, a French boxing writer, said that Sarnelli’s selection to the Olympic team was surprising because France sent only four boxers to Los Angeles, and Sarnelli wasn’t considered one of the country’s best fighters.

After his disappointing Olympic performance, Sarnelli decided to take a month’s vacation before resuming work. He wanted to become a professional boxer but was resigned to eventually entering the family textile business. Orlando had begun the company almost 30 years earlier when he and his wife emigrated from Naples, Italy, to Villefranche-sur-Soane, near Lyon.

When Vincent returned to France he met a former army friend whose relative was a boxing trainer. They persuaded Sarnelli to try to turn professional in Italy, where the chances of making a living were better than in France.

A widely known Italian manager decided to take on Sarnelli, and the boxer began training to earn a professional license in Prato, near Florence. In January of 1985, he underwent a complete medical examination, a routine practice for Italian pros.

“They never made me do anything like that with the French team,” Sarnelli told reporters. “When I got my results, the doctor told me, ‘Your blood is a little too fast.’ ”

Doctors ordered more tests before giving Sarnelli medical clearance. But his trainer wanted him to fight. Sarnelli told reporters that the trainer switched a urine sample to deceive doctors.

Then, they stalled for four days before taking a second blood test. In the interim, the trainer gave him shots of penicillin, Sarnelli said. Doctors say that such treatment would have no affect on a leukemia patient unless he or she had some sort of infection.

After the second blood test, the doctor still did not want to clear Sarnelli but the trainer persisted. “I agreed,” Sarnelli said. “I wanted to fight.”

Sarnelli had his first pro fight in March, 1985. Humberto, his younger brother, and his army friend came to watch. It was a fight he should have won. Instead, he lost badly, and even his opponent was surprised. Humberto was worried. Sarnelli looked weak and was nauseated at dinner after the bout.

Humberto alerted his parents to his brother’s symptoms. They brought him back to Villefranche and a local doctor immediately diagnosed the disease.

“We did not know him anymore,” Orlando said. “We took him to the hospital in a catastrophe.”

Sarnelli began chemotherapy treatment. Though he lost his hair, he seemed to react well. That summer he had a bone marrow graft, with Humberto acting as the donor.

Sarnelli was able to move into an apartment with his fiancee before the end of summer. Though his progress was rapid, doctors told his parents that they could not ensure the success of the operation for at least three years.

By fall, his hair had grown back and he was feeling better. The family was optimistic. He married. The day he died, in February of 1986, he was in the hospital only for a routine check. His wife, Veronique, had stayed home.

As Sarnelli’s complications were mounting, Valerie Speidel, an Anaheim teen-ager, was wondering why she had not heard from her friend.

Sarnelli had regularly corresponded with the Speidel family after meeting them during the 1984 Olympics. He had stayed with them for a few days after the Games, and more than the competition, meeting the family had been the highlight of his trip to Los Angeles.

Valerie, a soccer fan, had attended a few Olympic soccer games in the Rose Bowl, but even Olympic soccer wasn’t as important as going to the beach. There, one particular young French athlete had caught her interest.

Speidel, then 15, and her older sister, Annette, went to the Coliseum the night of the closing ceremonies to see if they could find the soccer player. They didn’t have tickets for the festivities inside but it was festive enough outside, what with fireworks booming above the L.A. skyline and people milling around the area.

The Speidel girls wandered over to USC, where some of the Olympians were staying. There they met two young French boxers. One was Sarnelli. Valerie asked them where she could find the soccer team. “Don’t ask about that soccer player,” they laughingly told her.

Despite the language difference, they sat down and began conversing. Eventually, Sarnelli invited the young women into the Olympic compound for something to eat.

Speidel never found her soccer player, but she had found a friend. Sarnelli was supposed to leave the next afternoon, but stayed on as a guest of the Speidels. For the boxer and the Anaheim family, it was what the Olympics are supposedly all about: A cultural exchange through athletics.

“The girls took him to a drive-in (theater) with their friends,” said Anna Marie Speidel, the girls’ mother. “I think it was the first time he’d ever seen a drive-in.”

Said Valerie: “I wasn’t aware of the Olympics as much as I would be now. It did make a difference (meeting him). He made a difference. It didn’t just end when he left.”

After failing to hear from Sarnelli for more than a year, however, Anna Marie, called the Sarnellis. They told her their son had died.

Then, during a European visit last fall, Anna Marie went to Villefranche to meet the Sarnellis. She gave them Olympic pictures of Vincent and souvenirs he had left behind. She invited them to visit in America this year, which they plan to do.

Times staff writer Lynn Smith in Costa Mesa and editorial assistant Barbara Bruhl Day in Paris contributed to this story.