Gary Hall Junior 10 Olympic medals won the American swimming team from 1996-2004, then Lost them all In January when the house he was renting was in Pacific Palisades He ascended in fire.
He now has all the five gold, all the three silver and both bronze are in his possession again, after the Chairman of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach He was presented to him on Monday during a party at the Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland.
In an interview by phone with the Times, Hall admitted that he was “emotional” at the ceremony about what he considered a huge gesture by one of the largest ruling bodies in sports.
“Just appreciation -” one of us “was a kind of feeling that you embraced,” Hall said. “When difficult times occur, you know who your friends are. Seeing this response from the highest level of sport, this makes you feel privacy. It makes you feel supported, which is required at this time. With the process of reconstruction and dealing with an incredible loss, this value is enormous.
“… measuring our value is the amount of help of others, and to be at the recipient to help and support is modest and inspiring.”
Hall maintained the medals in a fire -resistant secure – “I must verify the guarantee of this because it was certainly not a fire resistance,” he said jokingly – in his bedroom cabinet, and brought them out to help inspire ambitious children and athletes during appearances and speak.
when Hitting huge forest fires area January 7, Hall was unable to recover medals before running to safety at his sister’s home in Encinitas. After weeks, he returned to the site where he stood up and found safely in the rubble. Hall was able to open it but “disappointed” as he found it inside.
Hall said: “It was mainly a group of minerals, as you know, a mixture of watches, jewelry, rows and Olympic medals within this treasury,” said Hall. “All of this was assembled together at one big point. I managed to go out, for example, these half who melted together. President Thomas Bach showed him, politely refused and told me that I had to keep it.
Gary hall jr. A point of dissolved metal, which was one or more of its Olympic medals, along with one of the alternative medals he received from the International Olympic Committee on Monday in Lausanne, Switzerland.
(Dennis Paliboz / Swimming Pigeon / AFP via Getty Images)
He added: “There was another medal, silver, which was somewhat distinguished, you can say it is an Olympic medal. I have donated this one to the Olympic Museum” in Lausanne.
In addition to all his possessions, the fire also cost his swimming work, Sea monkeys swimmingWho ran out of the swimming pool at his home. He works to obtain a platform to dismantle sports for swimming and running, and plans to use these funds to re-launch his works-first in Florida, where he was residing during the past two months, or San Diego County and then finally returned to Palisades.
“I think everyone who lived in that area loved that region. It is no longer there anymore,” Hall said. “So this is the recovery process and will take some time. This work that I have dependent on families and children in the region. Those I know and spoke too, even those who did not burn their homes, many of them go out because it is just a toxic environment.
Hall said that one of the “silver lining” of the situation is that his 17 -year -old son Charlie should be with him when he received his new medals “because he was unable to see the first thing that is winning.”
“To be able to share this experience with him, it means the world for me,” Hall said.
