Olympics-Games victories bring athletes' tragedies to light

By Belinda Goldsmith

BEIJING, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Olympic medallists at Beijing shed tears of joy but also of sadness as heart-wrenching tales of loss and illness emerged from behind some of the victories.

Clutching a photo of his late wife, German weightlifter Matthias Steiner accepted his gold medal in tribute to Susann who died in a car crash last year.

"She's always with me, in the hours before the competition, she's there," said the world's strongest man, choking back tears. "I'm not the superstitious type, don't believe in higher powers, but I hope she saw me. I wish."

Israeli swimmer Alon Mandel set a national record in the 200 metres butterfly just days after the sudden death of his father who fell from a ladder when changing a light bulb.

He stayed in Beijing to honour his late father.

"It was very hard, it was a family decision to stay and compete and I wanted to do this for my Dad," he said.

American sabre fencer Keeth Smart beat back a rare blood disease that nearly killed him four months ago with doctors struggling to prevent internal bleeding then inspired the U.S. men's sabre team to an unexpected silver medal.

"This year has been one of the hardest years of my life as well as one of the greatest years of my life," said Smart, 30, who lost his mother to cancer two months ago. His father, who encouraged him to start fencing at age 11, died in 2005.

"I would much rather trade all my athletic accomplishments to spend one hour with either of my parents again," he said.

China's 10m air pistol gold medallist Guo Wenjun was abandoned 10 years ago at the age of 15 by her father while she was away with coach Huang Yanhua at a shooting contest.

He has not reappeared and her coach became her father figure.

Her sense of abandonment made her drop out training several times but she made it to the Olympics, telling her coach "my dad will see me and be proud."

American breaststroker Eric Shanteau was diagnosed with testicular cancer in June, a week before the Olympic trials, but delayed surgery so that he could compete in the Olympics.

He failed to make the final in Beijing but said it was worth competing and he now ready to "kick the hell" out of his cancer.

Gymnast Oksana Chusovitina, 33, used to compete for her native Uzbekistan but moved to Germany to save the life of her son who was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukaemia at age of 3 in 2002. With treatment in Germany, he has recovered.

"This medal is for my son. I could not have done this without him," said Chusovitina after winning silver in Beijing. (Additional reporting by Gelu Sulugiuc, Erik Kirschbaum, Martin Petty, Mitch Phillips, Kirby Chien, Pritah Sarkar) ((For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road to Beijing" here; and see our blog at blogs.reuters.com/china))