Arms exhausted, his heart pulsating against his chest, Oscar Sanchez rolled beside his coach after finishing his hand cycle time trial run at the Paralympic Games in Beijing.
“I think you got it,” the coach said two months ago.
With other cyclists still on the road completing the nearly 8-mile event, Sanchez wasn't so sure.
JANICE DARLINGTON
Paralympic hand-cycling gold medalist Oscar Sanchez will race in the San Diego Triathlon Challenge on Sunday in La Jolla.
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“That's highly optimistic,” he said.
Minutes later, the U.S. team manager, having read the results off the scoreboard, congratulated Sanchez on his victory.
“I didn't believe her,” said Sanchez, 32, who lives in San Carlos.
Even at the awards ceremony, when an official let go of the gold medal and it thumped against Sanchez's chest, “I was still in disbelief,” he said.
Later that night, lying in bed at the athletes' village, Sanchez shot up and yelled, “I think I won the gold medal!”
“What are you talking about?” his roommate said. “That was eight hours ago.”
“No, man. I won the gold medal. I am the fastest hand cyclist in the world!”
“Dude,” his roommate said, “you are crazy.”
Sunday morning, about 650 swimmers, cyclists and runners will congregate at La Jolla Cove for the 15th annual San Diego Triathlon Challenge. A noncompetitive relay, the 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike and 13.1-mile run began in 1994 as an effort to raise enough money to buy a paralyzed triathlete a wheelchair-accessible van.
The event has raised more than than $16 million for the locally based Challenged Athletes Foundation.
The funds have enabled CAF to award more than 3,300 grants for equipment, training and competition expenses for physically challenged athletes such as Sanchez.
Oscar Sanchez
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Partially paralyzed from the waist down after a 2001 motorcycle accident, Sanchez raced 12 times this year outside San Diego leading up to the Paralympics. CAF covered his travel expenses for all 12 races.
Nicknamed “Oz,” Sanchez is a self-described adrenaline junkie. His moniker on the football team at Whittier High: “Rainbow,” because of the multicolored hues on his helmet courtesy of head-on collisions.
He played hard off the field, too, hanging with gang members and “experimenting” with drugs. By the time he was 20, Sanchez had been handcuffed about a dozen times.
“I was sort of going down the path of no-man's land,” he said.
He enlisted in the Marine Corps and became a Reconnaissance Marine, similar to a Navy SEAL.
“Oz was pretty much the premier special-ops Marine,” said a Corps officer who requested anonymity for security purposes. “Nobody was bigger (6 feet 2, 225 pounds at the time), stronger, tougher than Oz. He was the dude.”
Added the officer, “There are very few people in the world I would trust with my wife or my wallet. Oz is that guy.”
After five years in the Marines, Sanchez resigned, planning to join the Navy and become a SEAL. Those dreams vanished after the motorcycle accident east of Morley Field left Sanchez with a shattered vertebra near the base of his back.
Sanchez has no use of his gluteus muscles, 30 percent use of his hamstrings and no use of the muscles below his knees. He has full use of his thighs. While Sanchez is partially paralyzed from the waist down, he can walk with forearm crutches and orthotics that fit just below the knee.
It wasn't until January 2003, nearly 18 months after the accident, that doctors gave Sanchez the OK to regularly exercise. He began racing hand-cranked bikes within six months.
Asked what competing means to him, Sanchez said, “It's the one thing that's been therapeutic for me since I was a child, that would rid me of frustration. Exercise was my venting. Since my disability, it's a new sense of identity.”
Sanchez, who also won a bronze medal in the 30.3-mile road race at the Paralympic Games, often trains with able-bodied cyclists such as Santee's Dan Plummer. Plummer tells other able-bodied cyclists that “I'm going to bring my disabled hand-bike rider out (to train.).”
Said Plummer, “He's my secret weapon. He kicks everybody's (butt).”
Sanchez works as a contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense. Insecure about his academic skills in high school, he didn't attend college right away. He didn't walk with his high school graduating class because he still needed to pass a course.
Two years ago, Sanchez earned a bachelor's degree in business management from San Diego State. His career goal: become a motivational speaker and the world's most famous disabled triathlete. While others will be doing Sunday's race as a relay, Sanchez will compete in the half-Ironman triathlon on his own.
Sanchez has mentored soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who have suffered disabling injuries. In some ways, he said the motorcycle accident is the best thing that ever happened to him.
“For one thing, I'm grateful that it helped me ground myself,” Sanchez said. “Early in my (post-accident) racing career, I had a drinking habit, and I was just racing for myself.
“Now, I've got to win for other people, people following your career. Family, friends, people with disabilities. I'd definitely say life has taken on a new meaning, just being part of a greater good.”
Don Norcross: (619) 293-1803; don.norcross@uniontrib.com
