August 23, 2004 7:06 pm
Hall willingly pays price for shot at Olympic glory
ATHENS, Greece — Each day for the past three weeks, Dennis Hall ate nothing but two meal-replacement shakes, a power bar and an occasional snack.
For a wrestler trying to fulfill an Olympic dream, the biggest sacrifice can be through the stomach.
Hall, 33, already has beaten a major opponent — weight-cutting — heading into his Greco-Roman opener Tuesday at 121 agonizing-to-reach pounds.
"That job has to get done first, before you ever step on the mat," Hall said.
The road to Athens was one of the longest of any Olympian for Hall, the Milwaukee-born bronze medalist from the 2000 Sydney Games.
Hall had to trim an already-drained body to its lowest weight since his junior year of high school.
Then, at the Olympic trials in Indianapolis in May, he and friend Brandon Paulson wrestled one of the longest matches in United States history — stretching beyond the regulation six minutes to nearly 17 minutes in order to determine the Athens qualifier.
Paulson continues to work with the veteran Hall, a 1995 world champion and former Wisconsin-Stevens Point student, and helped him late Sunday on his continued assault on his own body weight.
Hall said the two worked until 11:45 p.m. Athens time, but he couldn’t get to sleep because of the heat.
"I just couldn’t cool down," Hall said.
Hall slept just half an hour Sunday night, then grabbed about an hour more before stepping on the scale before Monday afternoon’s weigh-ins.
"That’s what defines wrestling — the sacrifice," Hall said.
Hall paid through his wallet, as well.
He covered expenses for Terry Brands, the Tennessee-Chattanooga coach and former three-time NCAA champion at Iowa, to travel to Athens and work with him. Hall said the cost was somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000.
"I just said, ‘Man, I gotta have him,’ " Hall said. "I love having him around, because he has the mindset of a champion."
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