One is a cancer survivor and another an epileptic. There is a
skier who came back from a horror motorcycle crash, another who
returned after complicated thyroid surgery.
One athlete has even rebuilt her career thanks to an operation
which repaired damage using a deceased donor's tendon.
They are here, happy to be competing.
American free skater Rena Inoue revealed how seven years ago she
feared that she would never skate again after being diagnosed with
lung cancer.
The 29-year-old Japanese-born skater thought her career was over
after a scan revealed cancer in 1998.
Inoue had gone for a check-up for what she thought was a case of
pneumonia.
But little did she know that it was the same illness from which
her father Masahiko had died 18 months earlier.
"It was at the really very beginning," explained Inoue. "The
doctor (said) 'You're lucky'. He was very confident."
After six months treatment of chemotherapy she was given the all
clear.
"(After chemotherapy) my immunity system was so low that I was
getting colds easy and getting tired easy," she said. "I had a
higher chance of pneumonia. But I recovered really quick."
The skater says she owes a debt to her late father.
"It would have been his birthday on February 7," said Inoue. "He
was the biggest support for my career."
American ice hockey goalkeeper Chanda Gunn never expected to be
at the Olympics when she was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of
nine.
It didn't stop her from pursuing a place at university but she
was hospitalised because of her condition after just seven
games.
When she recovered, the University of Wisconsin told her she had
lost her place on the team.
"They released me as unhealthy," said the 26-year-old. "They
took my scholarship away and said I wasn't welcome."
But Northeastern University offered her a lifeline and last year
she helped the United States to a first gold medal at the world
championships.
She still takes medication four times a day but she says there
has never been a medical emergency in a game.
Austrian skier Hermann Maier, a double gold medallist at Nagano
in 1998, was forced to miss the 2002 Games after a motorcycle crash
almost robbed him of his life.
"My lower leg is not the same," admitted Maier who was sixth in
Sunday's downhill.
"The calf is much thinner than the other. When I wake up my leg
is stiff and later it is tough to close the buckles on the boot.
But I can live with it, there's no pain."
Triple skiing gold medal winner Janica Kostelic is also no
stranger to the medical profession having undergone surgery to
remove her thyroid in January 2004.
She had just been told that if she didn't take a break from
skiing, she could die as health and injury worries piled up.
The Croatian, dubbed the Snow Queen, was back on the circuit in
October 2004.
"During the months of that break I went out and had fun and did
things I had had no time for. But then I got bored and missed
skiing."
Australia's best medal hope, defending aerials champion, Alisa
Camplin, needed a radical knee surgery in October last year to
replace damaged ligaments.
Surgeons used a dead man's Achilles' tendon to repair the injury
which was caused when she tried to practice a new jump in training
at Lake Placid.
"I never get teary over things like that because you can never
take them back," said Camplin.
"I didn't regret the decision to jump."
Camplin is one of only two Australians to have won gold medals
at the Winter Olympics. Speed skater Steve Bradbury also won gold
in 2002.
(China Daily February 14, 2006)