Alaska athlete wins Arctic sports all-around

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One of the most memorable moments of the 1994 Arctic Winter Games in Slave Lake, Alta., was a terrible one. Brian Randazzo of Anchorage, Alaska, suffered a patellar tendon rupture in the one-foot high kick, and many observers speculated that it would not only end his career, but that he might never walk again.

Randazzo served notice last month that the rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated. At the 1996 games, he won three Arctic sports gold ulus, took two silvers, and won the all-around Arctic sports individual athlete gold ulu. An ulu is an Inuit knife.

"It was a pretty bad accident," Randazzo said. "It took a long time to heal, but they did a good job. It's actually a little better than 100 per cent now, I think."

Randazzo was transported to Edmonton's Royal Alexandra Hospital. He was out of athletics for more than a year, and the 1996 Arctic Winter Games were his first competition since the accident.

"I was just real interested to watch him," said John Estle, chief de mission for Alaska at the games. "If you hear anything about the Arctic sports, you hear Brian Randazzo's name."

Out of eight individual Arctic sports in the games, Randazzo won the knuckle hop with a distance of more than 32 m, won the two-foot high kick and returned to win the one-foot high kick. He finished second in the Alaska high kick and the airplane, a timed event in which competitors are lifted off the floor rigid and timed for how long they can hold the position.

"It seemed to me that he was definitely aware of the injury, but he didn't seem to hold back," Estle said. "He may have approached the sports a little less recklessly than he might have before.

"He seemed to be prepared for the sports, to know what he could do, and he just did it," Estle continued. "He hit the winning height (in the one-foot high kick) on his first jump. He just walked out there with his face on and did it. Randazzo took up Arctic sports in high school.

"I got into it through a Native culture awareness class," he said. Within a year, he had set a record in a high kick competition. He's planning to compete at the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics in Fairbanks, Alaska, in July this year.

"I'll compete for as long as I can I guess," he said. "Who knows? In some sports, you can take part till you're 100."

Randazzo said that he was extremely grateful that his injury had healed as well as it did, and that winning in 1996 was sweet because he did it after recovering from an accident that might have ended another man's career.

"I can only say that I've been pretty blessed all my life," he said.