BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS : SUMMER GAMES SPOTLIGHT : FIVE YEARS OFF WERE GOOD FOR HIM

Chris Campbell, a Syracuse, N.Y., lawyer returning to wrestling at 37 after a five-year hiatus, says he knows of no other wrestler attempting a comeback like his. But he said the five years off were good.

“My body was not getting beaten up like it would have been if I had continued to wrestle,” he said. “I look at younger men and I can see the toll that wrestling has taken on them. During those five years, I took care of myself. I did yoga, I went vegetarian, I did weight training. The other guys kept in competition and they’re pretty beaten up.”

Who will be his toughest competition?

He said Makharbek Khadartsev, a 26-year-old Russian.

“He is really tough,” Campbell said. “I’ll try to keep the match close and hope for him to make a mistake.

“He made a mistake in the ’91 World Championships and I was able to take advantage of that. He won the championship, but I beat him.”

Khadartsev’s mistake?

“He shoots for the legs, and that makes him vulnerable to a headlock, which is my specialty.”

This a daily roundup of Olympic-related items from reporters in Barcelona from the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Baltimore Sun and Hartford Courant, all Times-Mirror newspapers.