Former classmates search for Olympic medals By MIKE KEMMETER of The Gazette The 1986 graduating class at Stevens Point Area Senior High probably has a few doctors, lawyers and teachers 16 years after leaving the school on NorthPoint Drive. It also has two Olympians, Curt Clausen and Suzy Favor Hamilton. The duo, which competed in track and field and cross country at SPASH, are in Sydney, Australia, this week with hopes of bringing home medals. Clausen competes Thursday night, Central Standard Time, in the 50-kilometer racewalk. Favor Hamilton races in the final of the 1,500 meters early Saturday morning, CST. The two went through school together but the their careers are on almost opposite sides of the public spectrum. Here's a look at how both got to where they are now. Suzy Favor Hamilton This is Favor Hamilton's third shot at an Olympic medal. She competed in the 1,500 meters in the 1992 Barcelona games and in the 800 in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The road to her international success started when she was young, about nine or 10 years old. She joined the Stevens Point Area Running Club (SPARC), which competed in track and field meets over the summer months. "I saw her run the first time she ran in the grade school track meet. She beat everybody in the quarter-mile by about a quarter of the track," Kent Hall, who was the co-coordinator of SPARC with his wife, Sue, said. "It was so obvious of her talent. It wasn't even funny. "She combines qualities of distance running with sprinting. The only race she would lose at SPASH was the 100 meters. She could essentially beat anyone from 200 meters and up." In her high school days, Favor Hamilton, who held the nickname "Bug," won 11 state championships in track and field and cross country at SPASH. "I heard of her my first year coaching cross country," said SPASH coach Mike Olson, who coached Favor Hamilton during her four years in high school. "The next year, she was in junior high, and she showed up and dominated everybody from the start. The only time she got beat in a distance race was when she was a freshman in cross country. "The great thing about Suzy was I've coached a lot of girls with a lot of talent and a lot of girls with a lot of heart. She's the only one with a lot of both. We'd finish workouts and she'd ask what else she could do. "She loved running. She just had a riot. She's always had fun." Olson recalls Favor Hamilton's sophomore year, when she ran two sprinting events to help the Panthers beat rival D.C. Everest for the conference indoor title. "I thought it would be a very close meet so I tormented. I finally put Suzy in the mile, 400 and 200," Olson said. "She set conference records. Suzy's time in the 200 was on the state honor roll until halfway through the outdoor season. "We won indoor conference and only she could handle a triple like that." From SPASH, Favor Hamilton moved on to Wisconsin, where she won nine NCAA titles and was a four-time winner of the Big Ten Player of the Year. The award is now named the "Suzy Favor Award." She was also the NCAA Woman of the Year in 1991 and was the Big Ten Athlete of the Decade for the 1990s. "One of my big goals was to pass her on to the next guy," Olson said. "(Wisconsin coach) Peter (Tengen) was a great choice." After graduating from Wisconsin, Favor Hamilton moved to Malibu, Calif., and then competed in the 1992 Olympics. In 1994 she moved to Eugene, Ore., to train for the 1996 Olympics. After a disappointing showing in the 800 meters there, she decided to move back to the Madison area, where Tengen is again her coach. This season, after returning from Achilles' tendon surgery, Favor Hamilton has the fastest time in the world in the 1,500 meters. "She won't let anyone pass her. She's not getting mixed up in the crowd now," Hall said. "That was her style in high school and college. She would go to the front and dare everyone to pass her. After she graduated, she changed, but now she's doing it again. I think she's back to her roots." Olson is anxiously waiting to see what happens in the 2000 games. "I'm just so exited. I'm just thrilled," he said. "Every time I see her run, it still gets to me." Curt Clausen Clausen started running in grade school but didn't pick up the racewalking events until he joined SPARC. After completing seventh grade, Clausen worked with racewalkers from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and was hooked. "He was a long distance runner and found more success through racewalking. He picked up on that and quickly became a dominant racewalker even when he was still in school," Hall said. "He has succeeded in his events more than Suzy had. "He just seemed to have the right hip movement and bone structure to racewalk. Without SPARC he never would've been exposed to that event." In high school, Clausen ran distance events for the SPASH track and field team and competed in cross country. Racewalking isn't a sanctioned event by the WIAA. "He ran track and cross country but his real love was racewalking," said SPASH cross country coach Donn Behnke, who coached Clausen. "Curt was always that athlete that calculated everything through. He had a great mind for competition. "In the 1984 state meet, our fifth man took a really bad fall and he didn't recover from that fall. Curt was our sixth man and I remember yelling to him, 'Curt, you have to move up.' He ran a great last mile and we were one point away from winning the state championship. He knew exactly what that meant. He sized up the situation and did everything he could to help us." Through SPARC, he competed in racewalking events through high school. He made the U.S. Junior Olympic team and competed in the Junior World games after his senior year. "I think with the success that SPARC had and SPASH cross country and track had, kids expected to be successful," Behnke said. "He learned about hard work early on and I think those were important in his development." Clausen went to college at Duke University and again, racewalking wasn't a sanctioned sport. He finished 15th in the 1988 Olympic Trials in the 50-K but skipped the 1992 Olympic trials to concentrate on his master's degree in public management at North Carolina State. He continued training, self-coached, and made the 1996 Olympic team in the 20-K racewalk. He finished 50th at the Atlanta Olympics. Clausen then decided he needed to train full-time, so he gave up his job as a solid waste manager in North Carolina and moved to the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif. Clausen was joined there by fellow U.S. racewalkers and coach Enrique Pena. Pena coached 1996 20-K Olympic gold medalist Jefferson Perez. Since then, he's rewritten the American record books in racewalking. He finished fourth in the 50-K at the 1999 World Outdoor Track and Field Championships.