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Swede clears biggest hurdle
In one of the most remarkable comebacks in sport history, Engquist will take to the Olympic Stadium track today for the 100-metre hurdle heats -- three months after having a cancerous breast removed. That in itself is astounding, but, even more so, Engquist hasn't completed her chemotherapy treatments yet.
"I have made four chemotherapies and I have to make two or three more at the end of August," the two-time world champ said yesterday. "(But) I don't want to talk about my sickness. I came here to compete."
Doctors discovered a malignant tumour in her right breast in late April. While they did a mastectomy, they could not cut out all the cancerous cells. As a result, the track star needs chemotherapy -- a procedure that leaves her nauseous and in discomfort, although she refuses to take anything for the pain. She has cut her hair short because it's falling out and patchy.
But this is one tough woman. After her surgery, she was ordered to rest for six weeks. A day later, she was doing squats beside her hospital bed and was back running within a week.
American sprint star Marion Jones, who captured the 100-metre gold on Sunday and long-jump bronze a day later, called Engquist the real superwoman, but the Russian-born athlete doesn't look at her return to competitive track as any big deal.
"I had had so much pain before through my career from legs that had been aching, from this that's broken, from that that's torn, that this feels like nothing," she told the London Evening Standard.
The 35-year-old mom has known emotional pain as well during her stellar career. In February 1993, while competing as Ludmila Narozhilenko for her native Russia, she was suspended for four years after testing positive for steroids. In one of the more bizarre twists in the sordid history of drug testing, she successfully sued the Russian federation after her ex-husband and coach, Nikolai, confessed that he secretly had spiked her vitamin supplements with steroids. She was reinstated in December 1995 under the IAAF's exceptional-circumstances rule.
And while she isn't expected to win here, Engquist has won a competition closer to her heart than any world championship. On July 30, in her first major competition back, Sweden's favourite adopted daughter won the DN Galan meet in Stockholm's Olympic stadium in 12.68, the sixth-fastest time this season. The Swedish fans, at first slow to embrace the Russian immigrant, laid on a standing ovation and the tears flowed.
Engquist, 35, is confident that she'll be perfect for next year's Sydney Olympics. That is, in perfect health. The gold isn't all that important anymore.
"I've had a lot of ups and downs in my life, but that's the fun for me. If it were just ups all the time, how boring life would be," she said. "For me, there's joy, happiness and stimulation in the fight itself."
Engquist is ranked sixth in the 100 hurdles, just behind Toronto's Katie Anderson.
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