Sports

A Soviet Master of Sport lands in a Bloomfield Hills pool.

MIKE ROSENBAUM
Special to the Jewish News

A

lex Sandler doesn't like to sit still. Sandler's
history includes an amazing variety of ath-
letic pursuits, beginning as a swimmer at
age 9 in the former Soviet Union, and
leading to his current position as head coach of the
Bloomfield-Birmingham Community Swim Team.
Don't be fooled because Sandler's career is book-
ended by swimming. The 33-year-old Southfield res-
ident's thirst for action has taken him across three
continents, onto fields and gun ranges, up moun-
tains, onto horses and into stunt cars.
Sandler's odyssey began in the now-independent
Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan, which was then a part of
the Soviet Union. He was a competitive swimmer
from age 9-13, then switched to the modern pen-
tathlon, which includes swimming, running, fencing,
horseback riding and target shooting. At age 15,
Sandler earned a spot on the Soviet national team and
earned the "Master of Sport of the USSR" award,
which he calls his major achievement in athletics.
He also developed a taste for rock-climbing. His
home town of Bishkek is surrounded by mountains,

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so it was a natural outlet for Sandler's energy.
From age 15-17, Sandler traveled throughout
Europe and the USSR, competing in national and
international events. He attended special schools,
trained in excellent facilities and earned coupons for
food and supplies that his family traded for currency. "I
was getting paid more than my mom and dad," he
recalls. On the downside, between schooling, training
and competing, he had little time for himself
At 18, Sandler's career was interrupted by a two-
year army stint. When he returned to civilian life, he
couldn't regain the conditioning necessary for the
grueling pentathlon, despite six months of effort.
But while training, he met his future wife, Oksana, a
member of Kyrgyzstan's scuba diving team. They
were married in 1987.
But Sandler faced a crossroad when he realized he
was no longer a pentathlete. "I could not live with-
out sport," he says. It was like drugs. Every single
morning you are waking up with one idea: 'What
am I going to do since I don't have any practices?'"
He met a rowing coach who invited him to join
Kyrgyzstan's national team. Sandler rowed competi-
tively from 1986-90, while earning a bachelor's
degree from the Kyrgyzstan State University of