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It's in his blood Kris Freeman won't let diabetes derail his Olympic dream
Achievements by athletes in Olympic sports during non-Olympic years often slip so far under the radar screen, you can't even find them buried in the microscopic sub-agate of page 87 in your local newspaper. Did you hear about the cross-country skier? No, not the one who helped free your car from the snowy morass in your driveway; this was the Yank who did himself proud at the World Nordic championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy, last weekend. No, he didn't set a world record, or a world title, or win a medal. Ah, so that didn't make it into the microscopic sub-agate of page 87 in your local newspaper. And that's a pity, because when Kris Freeman, a 22-year-old from Andover, N.H., finished fourth in the 15-kilometer classic race, he recorded the highest finish by a U.S. cross-country skier at a world championship or Olympic Games since Bill Koch won a silver in 1982, the inaugural year of the event. A week earlier, Freeman had won a 30-kilometer classic race at the World Under-23 Championships in Valdidentro, Italy. What's more, Freeman has diabetes. He injects himself with insulin five times a day just to have a normal life, much less one that tosses his heart rate around like flakes in a snowblower. A generous plate of pasta and sauce before a race or a simple reward of a chocolate bar after it, either of which might be perfectly acceptable for the prototypical distance athlete, can be a dangerous detour for Freeman, who has to watch everything he puts into his system. "I've done a pretty good job of proving you can do anything with this disease, if you put your mind to it," he says. Freeman never imagined he had a problem until three years ago, when he went in for a routine physical in September, 2000, and doctors told him his glucose levels were twice as high as they should have been. "What does that mean?" Freeman asked. He felt none the worse for whatever was going on in his bloodstream. And how could an athlete, in perhaps the most aerobically demanding sport on the planet, be subject to this kind of debilitation? "He told me I was a Type I diabetic," Freeman recalls. "That's the most severe kind." Roughly 90 percent of diabetics suffer from Type II diabetes, which can sometime be controlled through diet and moderate exercise. But considering the advanced stage of his illness, Freeman had to start taking the injections. They became as necessary as eating and sleeping for him. He began jabbing himself five times a day through a device that looked like a pen and could fit neatly into his pocket. "I need to know how many carbs are in this and that so I can take the proper amount of insulin," he says. "I watch everything I eat. The more refined the sugar in whatever I'm eating, the more trouble it can be." Freeman was fortunate that his condition never felled him during competition, though he had some abbreviated training days and his share of headaches from episodes of low blood sugar. His team always keeps extra energy drinks close by so Freeman can get to them at a moment's notice. "Once I got into a routine of how to control it," he says, "it became more of an inconvenience than something that was going to keep me from doing what I loved." It was the same sort of inconvenience that Olympic swimming champ Gary Hall Jr. faced during his career. Freeman qualified for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, and helped the U.S. team to an impressive fifth-place showing in the relay. Remember, American athletes excel in cross-country skiing about as well as they do in solitaire. It wasn't until this year's events that Freeman stopped fizzling out at the end of his races. "I paced myself better than I ever have," he said last weekend from Italy, site of the 2006 Olympics, when Freeman should be at his peak. "I skied conservatively and had a lot left." He missed out on a world bronze by just 2.1 seconds. The next-best U.S. finisher had particular reason to celebrate with Kris. It was his 26-year-old brother, Justin Freeman, who finished 45th. Skiing, it seems, is in their blood. Sports Illustrated staff writer Brian Cazeneuve covers Olympic sports for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com.
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