Arthritis Slows Jenner and Hamill

First it was basketball, then tennis, then running. Slowly, achingly, osteoarthritis was taking athletic activities away from the man who mastered 10 of them at the Montreal Summer Games, 1976 Olympic decathlon champion Bruce Jenner.

“I’ve known I’ve had it. My knee has always given me problems,” Jenner said. “But it got to the point where I actually had to start giving up things. And I hate that.

“It would take two weeks for my knee to come back after playing basketball. I used to play a lot of tennis and then, next thing you know, same thing with tennis. That banging on the knees, the jarring, twisting motion--I couldn’t do it. All of a sudden, every time I played, my knee would swell up.”

About a year ago, even a pastime as low-impact as golf became a struggle.

“Climbing into the woods to get my ball, next thing I know, my knee is giving me problems,” Jenner said. “I said, ‘We can’t have that.’ ”

Jenner and another Olympic star of 1976, figure skating gold medalist Dorothy Hamill, have become spokespersons for a public-awareness campaign for osteoarthritis and a pain-relief medicine used in its treatment.

Jenner, 50, and Hamill, 44, have both been diagnosed with osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, which affects more than 20 million Americans. Hamill, who still skates professionally on tour, said she “was getting to the point where everything hurt, and it was depressing. I felt geriatric.”

Jenner describes osteoarthritis as “part of the breakdown of the old body. Obviously, through proper nutrition and exercise, you can minimize the damage, but part of it is unavoidable. And some people get it worse than others.”

As an elite athlete with a right knee that had twice been surgically repaired, Jenner believes he was more susceptible than most.

“I spent 12 years of my life, the last six years training six to eight hours a day, every day of my life,” he said. “At the time, when I was 20 to 26, I could do things like that and you’re not going to notice it. But cut to 24 years later, and [after] two knee surgeries, and it became a problem.”

But, he added, “I now have it under control. . . . There are options out there, options that can help you out. I’m trying to spread the word.”