Stolen gold: Utahn placed first but had to settle for silver

It's been 44 years since Blaine Lindgren stepped off the podium in Tokyo with the Olympic silver medal hanging around his neck, and it still eats at him. The color of that medal.

He was so close. He was closer than close. For 45 minutes, he was the Olympic champion. The rest of his life, he's been the runner-up. He has the distinction of being the only second-place finisher to reach the finish line first in an Olympic race.

At 69, he rehashes the race and the fates as if it were yesterday. "I've had to live with it," he says.

His wife of 41 years, Maiva, says, "It's a lifelong disappointment. It's just one of those things you never get over."

Even if he could forget, there are reminders everywhere. Blaine and Maiva drove to a reunion of Olympians in California last week, and the subject of Lindgren's strange Olympic race was raised repeatedly by fellow Olympians. On the return trip to Utah, they visited old friend and Olympic legend Billy Mills, the 1964 Olympic 10,000-meter champion. Over lunch, Mills told his family about Lindgren's fateful Olympic race.

"He's a lot better athlete than I ever was," Mills told his children.

Lindgren, a retired banker who lives in a modest home in Salem and works part time to make ends meet, noticed the difference in how the color of their medals had affected their lives. Mills' gold medal has brought him fortune and fame. A movie — "Running Brave" — and a book have told his story. He has sponsorships and receives paid trips to every Olympics. He is paid thousands of dollars for speaking engagements around the country.

"He lives in a $3 million house," says Lindgren. "Because he won the gold medal. Nobody pays for a silver medal. I'm retired now. Those people with the gold medals make a lot of money off them. It would have been nice for retirement. I'm struggling like any other retiree."

For anyone with perspective, a silver medal is a remarkable accomplishment. But when you've been told you were the Olympic champion, when you have savored it and accepted congratulations, and then had it taken away when it was right in your grasp, perspective is lost.

Lindgren didn't even begin his track career until his junior year at Cyprus High School, and then only because football coach Rex McKee suggested it as a way to improve his speed for football. As Lindgren tells it, "They didn't have any hurdlers, so I figured I'd be the best we had at that. My coach had been a hurdler, and he got me started correctly."

The 6-foot-4 Lindgren, who also was an all-state football player, was unbeaten in the high and low hurdles. He took his talents to the University of Utah, where he lost only one race in Skyline Conference competition and earned All-American honors while also working 40 hours a week loading freight for a trucking company.

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