http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/23/sports/othersports/23sandoval.html?oref=login
By MARC BLOOM Published: May 23, 2005 When Dr. Anthony Sandoval of Los Alamos, N.M., does his daily run at dawn through the Jemez Mountains, where he trained while he was a medical student a generation ago, he is often reminded of the race that was both his greatest triumph and a symbol of lost opportunity for hundreds of Olympic athletes. On May 24, 1980, Sandoval won the United States Olympic marathon trial with a pivotal performance. Despite being unable to train at peak levels because of his studies, Sandoval ran the race in 2 hours 10 minutes 19 seconds to win by 21 seconds on a course that started in Buffalo and finished on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. But Sandoval was among 466 Americans in 24 sports unable to compete in that year's Summer Olympics because the United States led a boycott of the Moscow Games to protest Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Among the United States Olympians that year, Sandoval had perhaps the most to lose because of the boycott. American track followers had rated him a gold-medal threat. Running would soon become a professional sport, with marathon champions gaining worldwide fame and large purses. In Moscow, the marathon was won by Waldemar Cierpinski of East Germany, who also won at Montreal in 1976 and has since been implicated in his nation's widespread drug scandal. Today, Sandoval, 51, is not bitter but still feels the sting of a missed chance. "I was so comfortable with my running, so healthy," he said in a recent telephone interview. "I think I would have been vying for the gold medal. I wish I'd had the forethought to keep at it." Demoralized at the time by the boycott, Sandoval ran local races and kept away from the limelight. He made halfhearted attempts in other marathon trials, placing sixth in 1984 and 27th in 1988; in the 1992 trial, he was injured and did not finish, ending his running career. Sandoval continued to run for fitness as he completed his medical studies and became a cardiologist, tending mostly to New Mexico's poor. "Heart function always excited me," he said. Sandoval helped create the New Mexico Heart Institute, now the state's largest agency for cardiac care. He is on call virtually all the time, and he runs with a pager and a phone. Still training up to 10 miles a day, Sandoval, 5 feet 8 inches and 120 pounds, looks almost as trim as he did when tests showed he had a mere 1 percent body fat in 1980. He runs the same mountain trails as before, reaching altitudes of 10,000 feet, passing herds of elk and seeing the small town of Truchas, where he grew up, in the distance. When his schedule allows it, Sandoval will go as far as 17 miles on what he calls his breakfast run. His wife, Mary, meets him with bagels and fruit at a mountain clearing. Although he recently ran a masters race, Sandoval's mission, outside medicine, has been to pass on the values of running to his six children. "Living life in an appropriate way," he said about the ethic of running. "Loving the environment, respecting your body. While my running is personal, it is also something I can give." Sandoval's oldest child, Magdalena, 22, graduated from the University of Oregon this month after starring in track and cross-country for four years. She is expected to compete at the N.C.A.A. meet in June in Sacramento. Miguel, 21, will be a senior next fall at the University of California-Davis, where he runs cross-country and is on the triathlon team. Marisa, 17, is a key member of Los Alamos High School's nationally ranked state champion cross-country team. Analisa, 16, is a swimmer and a runner at Los Alamos. Benigno, 13, is a soccer player. Teresa, 10, is in fourth grade. As an initiation rite, Sandoval takes his children to run the mountain trails that fueled him in 1980, teaching them lessons along the way. Running deep into Bayo Canyon, Sandoval and Marisa will mark sites traditionally considered holy and empowering. "There are long columns of sandstone that the local Indians consider sacred," Sandoval said. "When I did my hardest workouts, I would put out my hand, to acknowledge the Indian spires and draw strength from them." At 10, Sandoval moved from Truchas to Los Alamos after his parents divorced. Too small for basketball or football, he started running and became a state champion at Los Alamos High, earning a scholarship to Stanford. He first showed Olympic medal potential in 1976, when he won the Pac-8 Conference 10,000 meters over three Kenyans from Washington State, including Samson Kimobwa, who set a world record in the 10,000 meters the next year. "They took 2-3-4 against me," Sandoval recalled with relish. Those triumphant memories are never far away as Sandoval runs the Jemez Mountain mesas and the sun rises over the distant Sangre de Cristos, shading the canyon with chocolate browns and giving Sandoval a glow in the morning light. "Sometimes," he said, "a memory will flash if I turn a corner and come upon a trail I used to run." Has Sandoval finally made peace with the disillusionment of 1980? "I think I'm content, but not perfectly," he said, noting that he felt he had never been fully tested. "I never ran all out." ENDS
