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Livi Well

and was burned out. I was looking for
something else," she recalls. "I always
liked biking and those 20-mile family
bike rides in the summer.
"I've never felt like I fulfilled my
[athletic] potential. I still think, defi-
nitely, I'm getting better. Every day I
wake up, I want to go for a ride.
When it's no longer fun or I no longer
feel like I'm improving, I'll bail out
and move on."
Then, she'll begin to use her
Stanford degree in urban planning
and plan her own financial picture,
which thus far has been quite bleak.
In fact, she is probably most infamous
for having lived for years in that bro-
ken-down Econoline parked in the
driveway of a friend's house.
"You can't beat this area for train-
ing, but in every other way, [the Bay
Area] is the dumbest place for a starv-
ing cyclist to live," says a smiling
Nicole, who always considered the
van/home not a disadvantage but a
badge. "To me, it symbolizes the hard
work and dedication I've put in over
the years.
"I've given up a lot and I've put
everything I've had into cycling.
Living in the van allowed me to work
just enough to get by so I could
train."

Big Sacrifices

Within each of us there is an urge
to excel, to be the best at something,
to raise the world's image of our group
— be it a family, or an entire nation.
It's an instinct exemplified by Cliff
Bayer and Tamir Bloom, Olympians
who have made the biggest sacrifices
for the smallest spoils.
Bayer and Bloom are longtime
members of the U.S. Fencing Team,
working endlessly at a sport few peo-
ple understand and even fewer care to
watch. They persevere, driven by pride
and dreams of accomplishing a break-
through in a U.S. medal drought in
their event.
"I've heard too many times that
Americans can't do a sport like fencing
because we don't have a tradition,"
says Bayer, a 24-year-old Wharton
School of Business senior whose fami-
ly retains dual United States/Israeli
citizenship. "But we've got people
starting to change the way they think,
and it's great to be a part of that."
Bloom struggled through a calami-
tous knee injury and is on sabbatical
from his final year in medical school
to tend to unfinished business. The
28-year-old epeeist was in the Atlanta
Olympics, 31st in individual competi-

Sports

tion and a member of the U.S. epee
team that finished eighth.
Bloom, Bayer and the rest of the
nine-member USA Fencing Team —
all from the New York area — are
linked by Yefim Litvan, a 1988 emigre
from Kharkoz in the Ukraine who in
a few years of diligence worked his
way from private tutor to national
fencing coach.
Litvan, who for five years has also
been fencing coach at Rutgers
University, has been obsessed with
proving New World athletes can suc-
ceed at an Old World sport, and vir-
tually hand-picked the team he feels
capable of taking giant strides in that
direction.
"It's been a great year for me," says
Bayer, who enters the Olympics
ranked No. 8 in the world in the foil.
He has legitimate hopes of becoming
only the second American since 1960
to medal in fencing.
It's a far cry from those after-school
afternoons when Cliff and older
brother Greg would unnerve their
mom by dueling with Luke Skywalker
light sabers in the living room.
Roberta Bayer thought, "If they like it
so much, let them do it for real," and
enrolled them in a fencing studio.
Going to Sydney is part of a family
reunion. It has been 10 years since
Bayer has seen first cousin Gil Ofer —
who will also be in Sydney as a mem-
ber of the Israeli judo team.
For Bloom, Sydney is the last desti-
nation of a gutsy, determined globe-
trotting campaign. Right before the
1999 World Championships in Seoul,
Korea — where he could have secured
an Olympic berth with relative sim-
plicity — he tore the anterior cruciate
ligament in his right knee.
It was a staggering setback for
someone who had already decided to
defer his final year at Mt. Sinai
Medical College to concentrate on
getting to the Olympics. Rather than
undergo a surgery from which it nor-
mally takes a year to rehabilitate —
and forego that Olympic dream —
Bloom settled for using anti-inflam-
matories and a custom-made knee
brace.
Then he set off on his only remain-
ing recourse to qualify for the
Olympics, accumulating enough
points in international weekend tour-
naments in Budapest, Glasgow, Paris,
Montreal, Bogota, Cleveland, Buenos
Al r es .
It earned him plenty of frequent
flyer miles — and one more trip, to
Australia.

❑