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Olympic champ Shea has leg surgery Posted: Friday November 22, 2002 12:45 AMLAKE PLACID, N.Y. (AP) -- Olympic skeleton champion Jimmy Shea is recovering from leg surgery and will not compete for at least the first half of the World Cup season. Shea had vascular surgery in Salt Lake City, where he won his gold medal. He said the blood flow in his left leg was at only 50 percent during the competition in February and worsened after the Winter Games. Shea said he decided not to reveal the hereditary condition. It is not clear if he will be able to compete this season. "It's the competitiveness of the sport that is making me want to come back," Shea said. "But if I have to wait until next year, then I'll have to wait." The 34-year-old Shea is the youngest member of America's first three-generation family of Winter Olympians. He captured the Olympic race by coming from behind on the final turn to win by six-hundredths of a second.
His 91-year-old grandfather, who died a month before the skeleton competition, won two speedskating events at the 1932 Lake
Placid Games and was America's oldest living Winter Olympian. Shea's father, Jim Sr., competed in three cross-country events a the 1964 Innsbruck Games.
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