In 2003, he was hit by a subway in Prague and lost both of his legs. It made me realize that we take for granted every step we take, and my brother now has to physically challenge himself to take each step in his prosthetic.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In February 1991, I was rushed to the hospital in Los Angeles to have my feet amputated. Three years earlier, I had broken the national 100 meters hurdles record while a student at UCLA and was a favourite for the event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
When I was very young, my father had an accident. He fell down a flight of stairs, fractured his skull, and lost sight in one eye.
My other brother-in-law died. He was a karate expert, then joined the army. The first time he saluted, he killed himself.
At the age of 61, my hip went. I was skiing in Chile with my son, and there was a turn, and I kept falling. I thought, 'What an idiot; what's going on here?'
I got injured at the Olympic Trials in 2000. I could not jump. I could not walk on my leg properly. I couldn't bend my knee. I couldn't straighten it.
I was flying with my brother, and he challenged me to work out on the airplane. He thought it was funny - and I did it!
After 13 years of hard landings in gymnastics, one ski run had delivered the biggest injury of my career.
In 2001, my father finally succumbed to the bone cancer that had tortured him for seven years. His last weeks were a terrible, black icing on the cake, the agony, the slow twisting, thinning and snapping of his skeleton. Everything fell apart.
The greatest feeling of accomplishment for me is the fact that I was an athlete who was somewhat disabled.
My father was a Norwegian who came from a small town near Oslo. He broke his arm at the elbow when he was 14, and they amputated it.