Word: krayzelburgs
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...Olympic swimmers in Sydney last week were competing for a single country. Lenny Krayzelburg was representing one and a half. The handsome backstroker wears the uniform of the U.S., but beneath the red, white and blue is a splash of the Soviet Union's red and gold...
...Last week the 24-year-old Krayzelburg called on both aspects of his background to win three gold medals and lead an underrated U.S. team to an astounding 33 medals in the pool. In a week in which some big fish got reeled in - Australian sensation Ian Thorpe, Dutch wonderboy Pieter van den Hoogenband and the Russian Rocket, Alexander Popov, each found himself bettered in one race or another - nobody caught Krayzelburg. Indeed, after a rough start, the rest of the U.S. team outswam the favored Australians, who performed before raucous hometown crowds. Swimming is the Olympics in Australia...
...That was the year Vitaly Ovakimian decided Krayzelburg's future. The coach at the Red Army club in Odessa, Ukraine, selected the "born backstroker" with the long, lean body and the almost double-jointed elbows to enter the Soviet sports machine. It churned Krayzelburg through five hours a day of training and produced a superior product...
...late '80s, Krayzelburg's parents were so worried about the deteriorating Soviet system that they applied for exit visas. The family, including Lenny's sister Marsha, finally left the USSR in 1989 and landed in Los Angeles. At what should have been the peak of his career, Krayzelburg instead found himself struggling to learn a new language, getting a maintenance job at the local Jewish community center and swimming only a couple of hours a week...
...Krayzelburg speaks easily in English, no trace of an accent. His father speaks little English, his mother a bit more. Cutting across the campus at USC, where he still trains, the child of the Soviet Union stops often to talk with friends, students and teammates. He talks about the Lakers, the Dodgers, whatever. He talks about the NASDAQ. His degree is in finance. "So, do you think I look Russian?" he suddenly asks. His hair is blond. His eyes are blue. He could be featured on one of those Soviet posters of the Cold War, staring ahead toward...