A tale of two athletes

Over the past week, a number of inspirational sports-related stories have drawn my attention, and two of them held my attention because they were so jarringly different. Here's the first one, which caught my attention as a (recently minted) distance runner:

A 400-pound sumo wrestler made history Sunday becoming the heaviest person to finish a marathon.

Kelly Gneiting, 40, grabbed a Guinness World Record at the Los Angeles Marathon after he plodded across the finish line drenched in rain and with a time of 9:48:52.

"I did it, but it was hell. Pure hell," Gneiting told the Los Angeles Times...

Gneiting, 40, weighed 400 pounds before the race and 396.2 pounds after he used a combination of running and walking to conquer 26.2 miles in pounding rain and fierce wind.

The Idaho native crushed the previous world record for marathon weight - 275 pounds - and also set a personal record beating his 2008 L.A. Marathon time of 11:52:11 by more than two hours.

My first response is the natural one, "good for him". I understand the desire to "climb the mountain", so to speak, and to do something you never thought you would (or could). That's why I decided to train for and run the Boston Marathon last year, so it's a familiar sentiment (though I weigh a couple hundred pounds less). This guy refused to let his weight be an obstacle, and he ran through blisters and pouring rain to get to his goal. Cool.

But that wasn't the end of the story.

Gneiting, who calls himself "The Fat Man," is 6-feet tall and has a 60-inch waist. And he has a sense of pride to match his heft.

"I honestly think I'm one of the best athletes in the world," Gneiting told the Los Angeles Times last week before the race.

Okay, okay, easy there tiger. You finished the marathon, and good for you.

But let's be serious here, "fattest man to finish a marathon" is sort of a dubious distinction. It's kind of like being rated as the dumbest U.S. President (oh hey there Warren G. Harding, what's going on buddy?), or the worst playoff team in history. And when your finishing time for the marathon paces out to over a 22-minute mile--slower than most people's typical walking pace--I wouldn't get too uppity about your achievements.

As for the best athlete in the world... well, I'd say this guy has a pretty fair argument:

Arizona State's Anthony Robles hopped off the mat at the NCAA wrestling tournament after a perfect season. Penn State coach Cael Sanderson, familiar with perfect seasons, notched the Nittany Lions' first team title since 1953. And an ex-Penn Stater brought Arizona State another title with a pin of one of Sanderson's young stars.

Born with one leg, Robles took the 125-pound title Saturday night with a 7-1 win over defending champion Matt McDonough of Iowa. Robles' three-day performance here earned him the Outstanding Wrestler award.

For Robles, it was the finish to a 36-0 senior season and a journey begun when he took up wrestling as a high school freshman in Mesa, Ariz. He was anything but a dominator at the start.

"I was a terrible wrestler, only about 90 pounds, but my mom told me God made me for a reason, and I believe that reason was for wrestling," says Robles, who was given a standing ovation on the podium by a sellout crowd of 17,687 at the Wells Fargo Center.

Okay, yeah. Enough said. When it comes to overcoming obstacles and doing things that nobody thought possible, Anthony Robles > Kelly Gneiting. And it's not even close. Congratulations, Anthony. You are the man.

[NY Daily News]
[USA Today]