Coronado grad wins Olympic gold

BEIJING • With chaos a part of daily life, with a million reasons to quit, with nothing more than a glimmer of hope, Henry Cejudo never stopped believing.

Suddenly, there's no doubt about him, only an Olympic gold medal around his neck.

The Coronado High School graduate won a gold in freestyle wrestling Tuesday at the Beijing Games, five years after a move to the Olympic Training Center saved him from inadequate coaching and instability in a Phoenix ghetto.

"I really believed in myself, and I did it," said Cejudo, the son of former undocumented Mexican immigrants.

Cejudo, 21, is the youngest American wrestler to win a gold in the Olympics. The U.S. has had 50 gold medalists since it first wrestled at the 1904 Summer Games.

The victory nets Cejudo $65,000 in contractual bonuses - $25,000 from both USA Wrestling and the U.S. Olympic Committee and $15,000 from a fund by California wrestling enthusiast Ken Honig.

"What Henry has accomplished is an American success story," USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said. "This is a story of perseverance and determination. We couldn't be more proud of Henry, not only for what he has accomplished on the mat, but for how he has represented our country."

In the 121-pound gold-medal match, Cejudo scored a 2-2, 3-0 decision over Japan's Tomohiro Matsunaga, winning the first period on a tiebreaker and the second on a takedown that prompted a wild celebration in which he cried while running around with an American flag on his back.

He earned the right to wrestle for gold after upsetting 2004 Olympic silver medalist Stephen Abas at the U.S. trials, dropping 10 pounds Monday in a weight cut and three come-from-behind wins against Bulgarian Radoslav Velikov, Georgia's Besarion Gochashvili and Azerbaijan's Namig Sevdimov.

"He is the American dream," said Cejudo's personal coach, Terry Brands. "Gold medals are the American dream."

That dream almost wasn't realized.

When Cejudo was a child growing up in Los Angeles, his parents divorced, and his jail-prone father, Jorge, died last year of heart failure, done in by drug addiction and too many years of drinking.

Cejudo tried to stay out of trouble on the streets and at home with his five siblings, raised by his Christian mother, Nelly Rico, a low-paying factory worker who illegally crossed the U.S. border as a teenager.

Sharing a bed with as many as three brothers wasn't uncommon. Neither was packing his stuff on a whim and moving because his mother couldn't afford to pay rent.

"I didn't know what to call home because we moved so much," said Cejudo, who went from Los Angeles to Las Cruces, N.M., to Phoenix by the time he celebrated his eighth birthday. "Now my home is in Colorado Springs."

The OTC provided Cejudo with everything he lacked in his quest to become an Olympic champion - a stable roof over his head, world-class coaching and wrestlers of his caliber, including his older brother, Angel.

Using primarily aggression, Cejudo claimed two state titles at Coronado. He later added skill and smarts to his wrestling - good for three golds at the Pan American Championships, a silver at the Junior World Championships and two national titles.

Most considered Cejudo a long shot in Beijing since he didn't score a point in losing in the first round of the 2007 world championships and his weight class featured that event's gold, silver and bronze medalists.

Then again, he's an underdog in life.

"Coming from the environment that he came from," Brands said, "he could be in prison. He could be a drug runner. ... He has done an unbelievable job of not being a victim."

Moments after he stepped off the podium, Cejudo recalled his mother telling him, "Whatever you want to do, you can do."

Cejudo paused before saying, "And that's what I did."
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