Sydney, Australia, Summer Olympics, 2000.
Eight of the world’s top swimmers lined up to enter the water for the 50-meter freestyle.
The whistle blew and they moved forward.
In less than 22 seconds, the race was over.
Gary Hall Jr. of the United States won the gold over his teammate Anthony Ervin.
Only a handful of exceptional athletes have ever won an Olympic gold medal, and Gary’s achievement is particularly notable because he won the gold medal a year after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
Cautioned not to compete in swimming after the disease
At the time, his doctor cautioned him never to compete in swimming again.
How did he react? “Desperate, totally desperate,” he said. “You spend so much time getting your body in shape to compete with the best athletes in the world, but at a young age, your body just doesn’t work – it’s horrible.”
At the time, Gary was 24 years old and had no family history of diabetes.
A family of swimmers
As Gary said, the news was catastrophic for people with “swimming blood.
His father, Gary Hall Sr, was a three-time Olympian who joined Gary’s uncle, Charles Keating III, on the U.S. Olympic team in 1979.
His mother was also a national swimmer.
The parents expected all six of their children to swim, and Gary started swimming competitively as a teenager.
In 1996, he won two silver medals in swimming at the Atlanta Olympics, but he is still fighting to win gold.
“I believe that winning an Olympic gold medal is the pinnacle of what any athlete wants to try to achieve,” he said.
Training with diabetes
Taking on diabetes complications such as blurred vision and limp fatigue to train for the 2000 Olympics was not easy.
“Like a baby toddler, everything has to start from scratch,” he said. “Our training was full of constant trial and error. No book can tell us how to win at the Olympics with diabetes.”
The first step is to do a full swim practice, test your blood sugar and inject insulin if necessary.
Increase the length of the workout gradually in small increments.
“For me, testing the limits of my body’s ability is nothing new. Diabetes definitely changes that limit, but I still want to determine where my limits are.”
Getting Olympic gold
Gary has far exceeded the training limits his doctors set for him.
Not only did he compete in Olympic events with type 1 diabetes (which was unprecedented), he won a total of 10 Olympic medals, including five gold medals, and set a new swimming speed record.
Gary won back-to-back Olympic swimming titles in 2004 and retired from competitive swimming in 2008 at the age of 34, when he was inducted into Who’s Who in the U.S. Olympics in May.
Being a member of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Today, Gary is still dynamic, but his focus has shifted.
Now, his goal is to improve the lives of people with diabetes.
“I’m going to show the public a more active advocate in the diabetes field,” he said, with the same pride in his voice as he talks about his swimming career.
As a member of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s (JDRF) Government Relations Coordinating Committee, Gary traveled across the United States to lobby for new treatments for the estimated 3 million people with type 1 diabetes.
Providing an artificial pancreas
People with type 1 diabetes do not produce enough insulin – a hormone that the body needs to convert blood sugar (glucose) into energy. Insulin helps lower blood sugar by facilitating the movement of sugar from the blood into the liver and muscles to be stored as glycogen, while restraining the release of otherwise stored glycogen again.
While type 1 diabetes used to be called juvenile diabetes, it can also occur in adults like Gary.
One of the projects he’s quite proud of is the artificial pancreas, a breakthrough system that continuously monitors blood sugar levels and automatically releases insulin to adapt to changing blood sugar levels.
He wants to make this product available to patients who need it.
“We should launch this product as soon as possible,” he said. Speaking on the Senate floor, Gary testified that this is indeed the case, and he encouraged lawmakers to update the dedicated diabetes program that funds diabetes research, treatment and prevention for Native Americans.
International Committee to Serve Sanford Children
Gary moved on to serve on the Sanford Children’s International Committee after he stopped focusing on advocacy work.
The council is an affiliate of Sanford Health, the largest nonprofit health care system in the United States, which provides health care to rural communities.
Sanford Health has several diabetes clinics and is engaged in research for the development of drugs to treat type 1 diabetes.
Enjoying life
Gary also promotes a line of nutritional supplements designed to improve athletes’ performance.
In addition, he is a consultant for a diabetes documentary tentatively titled Big Shots, which highlights the realities of living with type 1 diabetes by outlining the experiences of some famous athletes and musicians who have diabetes.
Gary said he aims to release the film in November, which is Diabetes Month in the United States.
Today, Gary spends a lot of his time in the pool with his two children, one 4 and the other 6 years old.
But he doesn’t want to ask them to follow him into the history books of the Olympics.
“I’m more interested in teaching them how to make the right choices in life,” he said.