Top swimmer goes extra mile for diabetes

By Joanne Davidson
Denver Post Society Editor

Swimmer Gary Hall Jr. has eight Olympic medals - four gold, three silver and one bronze - and he's going for more. With only weeks remaining until the Summer Games in Athens, one of the fastest swimmers in U.S. history took a break and flew to Denver to help the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation realize its dream for 2004: raising $300,000 to help find a cure for Type 1 diabetes.

Special / David Zalubowski Janice Kercheville, left, is executive director of the JDRF's Rocky Mountain chapter; Perry Dombroski chaired the Dream Gala with Jim Kennel.

Hall was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes less than a year before he was to swim in Sydney. Initially, he was told to abandon any hope of competing again and warned if he didn't give himself daily insulin injections it would cost him his life.

That didn't set well with him, so he looked for a doctor willing to help him successfully combine treatment and training. The search led him to Dr. Anne Peters, a clinical specialist at the University of Southern California who helped develop a routine that fits his lifestyle.

He tests his blood sugar level - if it's too low, he could lapse into a coma and die; when it's too high, he could have a seizure and die - by pricking a finger eight times a day. Hall says he is "as aggressive as anyone out there" when it comes to managing his diabetes and that he encourages others to not let diabetes stop them - even if it's just playing T-ball or peewee football.

With his new doctor's help, Hall returned to a rigorous training regimen in time to enter the U.S. Olympic Trials and qualify for four Olympic events in Sydney in 2000, where he won an individual gold in the 50-meter freestyle, a gold in the relays, a silver in the relays and a bronze in the 100-meter freestyle.

If the 29-year-old Cincinnati native wins as many medals in Athens as he has won in his previous two Olympic appearances, he would surpass the American record of 12 for most medals won over an Olympic career in any sport.

Five hundred people attended the Dream Gala, which was chaired by Jim Kennel and Perri Dombroski. Honorees for this year's gala were Kew Realty's David Spira and his wife, Shirleyan Price, and their 18-year-old son, Jeremy, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 7.

The Spira family, including David's parents, Seymour and Jeanette, and sisters and brothers-in-law, Leslie and Mark Lopez and Ellen and Fred Fulkerson, have offered a $150,000 challenge grant to JDRF, to underwrite a grant to Dr. Ronald Gill of the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes.

The JDRF raises more than $1 million annually to support clinical care and research at the Barbara Davis Center for ChildhoodDiabetes and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

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