American swimmer Gary Hall Junior has “lost everything” in the devastating Los Angeles fires, including his 10 Olympic medals.
The 50-year-old will long be remembered as the man who declared the American 4-by-100-metres freestyle relay team was going to “smash them like guitars” at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, in reference to their Australian counterparts.
He actually went on to say “it won’t be so easy”, but the “guitars” line took off in the Australian media and Michael Klim famously played an air guitar after a team led by Ian Thorpe mowed the Americans down to win the gold medal.
However, any old rivalries are now being firmly pushed aside with the American one of tens of thousands facing horrific consequences from the raging forest fires which have killed at least five people and destroyed an estimated 2,000 buildings.
English (US) ·