Klug Completes Miracle on Snow

In what has to rank as one of the greatest accomplishments in medical and sporting history, 29-year-old Chris Klug of Aspen, Colo., who 18 months ago underwent a liver transplant, on Friday won an Olympic medal in snowboard parallel giant slalom.

It was bronze, not gold. But no matter.

“Medically speaking,” Martin S. Levine, a New Jersey physician and U.S. Olympic team doctor, said moments after Klug had flashed to bronze, “this is impossible.”

Said Klug’s father, Warren: “We are the proudest family in the Olympics.”

Klug said, “It’s awesome. That’s the most fun day of my life, probably.”

Switzerland’s Philipp Schoch, who ran cleanly down a treacherous, slippery course, won the gold; he beat Klug in the semifinals of the day’s head-to-head competition. Sweden’s Richard Richardsson took silver.

In the women’s parallel giant slalom event, also held Friday at Park City Mountain Resort, France’s Isabelle Blanc defeated teammate Karine Ruby to earn the gold medal. Ruby had won gold four years ago at Nagano but appeared to tire in Friday’s finals. Italy’s Lidia Trettel won the bronze. The sole American in the women’s final round, Lisa Kosglow, 28, of Boise, Idaho, was eliminated in the quarterfinals, losing to Ruby.

Klug’s medal is the first for the United States in Olympic snowboard slalom racing. Earlier this week, U.S. snowboarders won four medals in halfpipe, two of them gold.

His bronze also pushed the United States’ total of medals won at the Salt Lake City Games to 14--surpassing the U.S. team’s previous best at a Winter Olympics, 13, at both Nagano in 1998 and Lillehammer in 1994. U.S. Olympic officials are aiming for 20 or more medals at these Games.

Just as in traditional ski racing, the slalom event in snowboarding involves going downhill through a series of gates as fast as possible.

The twist in parallel giant slalom--which both men’s and women’s events were at these Games, for the first time--is that the competitors race against each other in a series of heats. You win, you keep going; lose, you’re out.

“I’m lucky to be here today,” Klug had said after qualifying for Friday’s final round. Diagnosed several years ago with the same illness that killed Chicago Bear running back Walter Payton in 1999, Klug’s liver began to fail in 2000.

That July, at a hospital in Denver, he received a transplant. He had been on a waiting list for years. He did not receive any special treatment because, for instance, he had finished sixth in the snowboarding slalom finals in Nagano.

The donor was a 13-year-old boy. He had been shot in the head and left brain-dead by a 14-year-old neighbor in what was later described as an accident. Klug consistently has paid tribute to the family of 13-year-old Billy Flood. Here he called them “the real heroes.”

For the rest of his life, Klug has to take special medication--now it’s two drugs, three times daily--to ensure that his body does not reject the liver. Nonetheless, only months after the transplant, Klug, with the help of Bill Fabrocini, director of the sports performance center at the Aspen Club, was back snowboard racing--and winning on the World Cup circuit.

The odds of that happening, doctors said, were astronomical. Sean Elliott of the San Antonio Spurs came back from a kidney transplant to play again in the NBA. But the liver is a far more complicated transplant.

The only other comparable case, doctors say, is that of cyclist Lance Armstrong, who has come back from testicular cancer to win the Tour de France three times. Klug met Armstrong before the opening ceremony at the Games, and called it “quite a treat.”

During the opening ceremony, Klug was selected as one of the U.S. athletes who would carry the tattered World Trade Center flag into the stadium.

After Thursday’s qualifying round, the top 16 went on to Friday’s finals. In the first round, Klug defeated Canada’s Jerome Sylvestre.

In the quarterfinals, he slipped in the first of two heats against Italy’s Walter Feichter, the bronze medalist at last year’s World Championships, and found himself behind by .75 of a second. But in the second heat, Feichter skidded out.

Also falling, in other heats, were Thursday’s top three qualifiers: Switzerland’s Gilles Jacquet, Austria’s Alexander Maier and Sweden’s Daniel Biveson.

The course Thursday was what the riders call “grippy”; on Friday it was icy.

In the semifinals, against Schoch, Klug wiped out.

Then, with a medal on the line, he defeated France’s Nicolas Huet, a two-time world champion in the parallel events--even though a buckle on Klug’s left boot broke in the first of two races. He fixed it with duct tape.

In the first head-to-head race against Huet, Klug crossed the finish line .15 of a second ahead, then topped that by beating him by 1.21 seconds in the second run.

Afterward he offered thanks to his family, coaches, teammates, the donor family, everyone who had helped achieve “my victory today.”

He stopped and paused, thinking about the word “victory.” He said, “Third place. Bronze. It’s a victory for me.”