Over the last week, many sports figures have grappled with losses in the wildfires ravaging Southern California.
For Hall of Fame swimmer Gary Hall Jr., those losses included the pinnacle of his life's work—his 10 Olympic medals, which he believes were lost with his home in the Palisades fires.
Hall described his harrowing escape from the fire's path on Tuesday to CNN's Erin Burnett.
"I thought I had more time,” Hall said. “I saw the fire charging down the hill and knew that I had to get out of there. I opened up the back of my SUV, I loaded a painting, one other object.
"The medals were in a closet in my bedroom, 70 feet away, and I didn’t have time to go get them," he continued. "It wasn’t easy to leave that behind. I worked a lifetime to achieve that and the memories remain but the souvenir is gone."
Hall won four medals (two gold, two silver) in Atlanta in 1996, four (two gold, one silver, one bronze) in Sydney in 2000, and two (one gold, one bronze) in Athens in 2004. He also won six world championship medals—four in Rome in 1994 and two in Perth in 1998.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Ex-Olympic Swimmer Gary Hall Jr. Says He Lost 10 Medals in Los Angeles Fires.
