http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/sports/othersports/11gold.html?_r...

From Death’s Door to the Medal Podium
By ALAN SCHWARZ

Customers at the Bend, Ore., Home Depot can get impatient when the middle-aged woman in gardening cannot quite process a simple question — “Where are the light bulbs?” — and asks them to write the words on the pad she carries. But sometimes that is what it takes before she can answer, “Oh, Aisle 4.”

Twenty-six years after a near-fatal bicycle accident left her comatose for two months and with permanent brain injuries, the saleswoman, Barbara Buchan, performs many actions more slowly than others. But on Wednesday in Beijing, she did one thing in world-record time.

Buchan, at 52 the oldest member of the United States Paralympic team, broke the record and won the gold medal for her disability class in the individual 3,000-meter cycling pursuit. For a woman who has lived without a quarter of her left-temporal brain and with serious physical and cognitive problems since her accident in 1982 while competing for a spot on the United States cycling team, the moment capped a remarkable comeback that has lasted longer than many of her competitors have been alive.

“You can be very upset at the world and have everyone take care of you,” Buchan said by telephone from Beijing, “or get back on your feet again.”

Growing up in Mountain Home, Idaho, Buchan first dreamed of Olympic gold at age 15 while watching the 1972 Munich Games. She became a top American cyclist by July 1982, when a horrific road-race crash shattered her skull and left doctors doubtful she would survive. She was wearing only a soft leather helmet at the time; her accident spurred the rule that cyclists wear the hard-shell helmets that are now common.

Then 25, Buchan underwent five operations to remove damaged portions of her brain and install a series of titanium plates to rebuild her skull. She emerged from her coma with six years of painful rehabilitation ahead of her — bone had grown over her elbows, locking her arms — and the possibility that she would neither walk nor speak again.

“She went through all the surgeries and the rehab, and of course she wanted to get back on her bike,” said her mother, Reba Buchan (pronounced BUH-kan) from her home in Coast Falls, Idaho. “It was only a year after the accident. Daddy was very upset,” she said of her husband, Gil. “We said, ‘Barbie, please don’t.’ But when they said she wouldn’t walk again, by God, she walked. When they said she couldn’t do something, she would do it.”

Buchan recovered enough of her athletic ability to run track in the 1988 Paralympics in Seoul, South Korea, where she won a silver medal at 800 meters. Women’s cycling was not included in the Paralympics yet, so Buchan trained to the point where she raced against men in the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney, Australia — she finished 9th and 10th in two races — and then successfully fought for a separate women’s cycling program beginning in 2004 in Athens, where she did not medal.

Even though she was approaching her 50s and a fixture at the Home Depot gardening section, Buchan still wanted to earn the medal she had dreamed about. She kept racing and again made the United States Paralympic team for Beijing — where she is twice the age of most of her teammates and competitors — and 11 years older than Dara Torres, the American swimmer who won three silver medals in the Olympic Games last month.

“Barbara’s the matriarch of our team — she’s been through it all,” said Craig Griffin, the United States cycling coach. “She’s never retired. She’s never let her body go and then come back. I don’t think age is as big of a deal as people make it out to be.”

Buchan added with a laugh: “The girls, they’re a lot younger. I usually hang out with the staff.”

Buchan’s leg strength and endurance help compensate for coordination problems in her arms and fingers, which impede her shifting gears. Her teammates help tighten bolts on her bicycle and make other tweaks before races. And because Buchan still has trouble reading and speaking, others must help her perform many day-to-day tasks.

“We’ve been saying, ‘Barbie, give it up — enough is enough,’ ” her mother said. “She’s deteriorating. I can see her level of health, the word problems and the frustrations that she’s going through to get things together. But cycling is her whole life.”

Buchan still has another race in Beijing, the 25-kilometer road time trial on Friday. Competitors have asked her when she is going to retire, to which she replies, “I’m not even thinking about that.”

The Home Depot back home has a large poster of Buchan prominently displayed, next to an American flag, near the gardening section that is missing one of its most valued employees.

“She’s outgoing, loving, and always happy,” said Glenda Davila, the store’s operations manager. “We’re so excited she has a gold. We can’t believe she’s winning medals over in China, and she works in our store.”

Reba Buchan, following the Games from her Idaho home a mile from where Barbara grew up, said she remembers the day that her daughter got back on her bicycle while her father cringed. Barbara rode away, faster than her mother could keep up running behind her.

“She was gone,” Reba Buchan recalled. “She still doesn’t have a lot of feelings in her hands. But she can hold on to that bike.”