An Impossible Olympic Dream Comes True : Torrance Woman Who Lost Leg, Wins Silver Medal Competing in Giant Slalom for the Disabled

Competing in the Olympics is probably a dream for most athletes. For Cathy Gentile, it seemed too impossible and far-fetched even for a fantasy.

That’s why she’s still having a difficult time believing she won a silver medal at the Winter Olympics in Calgary. She placed second in the giant slalom for the disabled, an exhibition sport.

“It was just such a great feeling,” Gentile said. “I don’t know that I can explain it.”

She paused for a moment and continued as she opened the blue velour case that contained her medal.

“Monday in the ceremony at the plaza there were about 50,000 people and they all went bonkers. I was overwhelmed. It was astounding . . . awesome. I guess awesome is the word. It may sound obvious, but it’s something I’ll never forget.”

It was extra special for Gentile because she is physically disabled.

Gentile’s right leg was amputated at the hip when she was 9 because of a cancerous tumor. Her disability, however, has never stopped her from being active.

“Just because I’m missing a limb doesn’t mean I can’t do normal things,” she said. “With one leg I can still do it. Maybe differently, but I can do it.”

Once she mastered getting around on her prosthesis and crutches, there was no limitation on her active life.

“The loss of her leg doesn’t hold her back one bit,” said Mary Rockovich, a close friend. “She doesn’t sit around feeling sorry for herself. She roller skates and goes bicycling and goes to the beach.”

But Gentile’s real passion is skiing. The 25-year old from Torrance is one of the world’s top three-trackers. Three-track is the category for skiers with one leg. Instead of polls, she uses outriggers, which are crutches with ski tips at the end.

In Calgary, not only did Gentile have the best performance of her career, she was part of an American medal sweep.

“I think it should have been played up more,” Gentile said. “I mean, we won all the medals, but we keep being viewed as a human interest event and not an athletic one.”

The other medals in the three-track giant slalom went to Americans Diana Golden, who took the gold, and Martha Hill, who won the bronze.

“When the three American flags went up and they played the anthem, I was nowhere near crying,” Gentile said. “I was just so psyched up. It makes your heart kind of stop.”

Gentile was supposed to be in Vail, Colo., where she trains during the winter, instead of Calgary. Originally she didn’t qualify to compete in the Olympics.

She placed fifth in the downhill event and sixth in the slalom at Innsbruck, Austria, in February. The Olympic Committee decided to take only the top five female finishers in the slalom to compete in Calgary.

However, a German competitor became ill, and Gentile was called at the last minute. She was notified on a Wednesday, arrived in Canada on the following Thursday afternoon and competed that Friday.

“Unbelievably, I was the calmest I’ve ever been in a race,” Gentile said, “even though the snow was weird and the wind was incredible. I even had to put my outriggers down to keep from being blown over.”

U. S. Disabled Ski Team head Coach Homer Jennings says being rushed actually helped Gentile.

“I think it did her good,” Homer said. “She didn’t have time to even let the impact of being in the Olympics fall on her shoulders.”

As a child, Gentile was told she’d have to sacrifice her leg for her life. Her doctor gave her the details and let her make the decision.

“The next morning,” said her mother, Diana Gentile, “she said, ‘Mom, I had a dream that the doctor did what he said he was going to do to my leg and I still lived happily ever after.’ ”

It was tough, at first, when Gentile was treated differently at school and people stared at her in public.

“When I was in junior high,” Gentile said, “the kids would limp, making fun of me. And they put me in a special P. E. (physical education) class that was a waste of time and a big joke. I went through two years of that baloney before they let me back in normal P. E. classes.”

By the time she was in high school at St. Mary’s Academy in Inglewood, she was allowed into regular physical education classes.

When she was 16, a man involved with a handicapped ski group approached her at the Fox Hills Mall in Culver City.

“He just kept staring at me,” Gentile said. “But I didn’t think anything of it because people always stared. Finally he came up to me and said, ‘You walk very well. Who made your leg?’ Then he invited me to water ski with the club.”

That winter Gentile tried snow skiing with the group and loved it. In 1982 she took time off from college to train in Colorado.

“I think skiing gives her great freedom that she didn’t have before,” Diana Gentile said. “Even when she has her leg on, she has to walk slow, but when she skis, she’s free.”

In 1984, after Gentile received her degree in financial business administration from USC, she moved to Colorado in an attempt to make the U. S. Disabled Ski Team. Last summer she finally made the three-woman squad.

“I can’t say she’s gifted,” Homer said. “She’s had to work hard to earn everything she’s got. She’s sacrificed everything from her career to her social life. She wants a gold medal and I think she has the tenacity to get it.”

During the snow season, Gentile trains about six hours a day and works at a ski shop in the evenings. She comes to California in the summer for dry-land training, which includes running and intense weight workouts.

Gentile doesn’t hesitate to jog minus her artificial leg with the aid of crutches or to hop with her left leg into the water at the beach. She doesn’t care what people think or say anymore.

“I’m sure it looks pretty weird,” she said, laughing, “running down the streets of Torrance with one leg. People stop and turn their heads and all they can say is, ‘Oh, my God.’ But I just go about my business.”

Her business now includes public and television appearances. Gentile recently was honored with a plaque by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. On Tuesday she went to the White House for the President’s reception for Olympians.

Her goal is to be the country’s best three-track skier and to win a gold medal in the next Olympics. But she also wants to be recognized as a true athlete.

“We’re not recreational-therapy students,” she said. “We train full time, just like the normal able-bodied athletes. This is essentially our job and they don’t even give us a hill that we can show our technical ability on. In Canada the hill was so flat that we could have done it with our eyes closed.

“Someday they’ll put us on a real hill.”