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Morning News

Three-Time Olympic Gold Medalist Gail Devers Discusses the Road to Sydney and Thyroid Disease Awareness

Aired September 7, 2000 - 10:46 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We caught three-time Olympic gold medalist Gail Devers before she heads out of town. She is heading Down Under to Sydney, Australia. She is going for gold again in track and field. This has not been an easy road for this star Olympian. Devers has also had to battle thyroid disease. And she is joining us more to talk about all of that.

Gail, good morning, thanks for joining us.

GAIL DEVERS, U.S. OLYMPIC TEAM: Thank you for having me.

KAGAN: It is great to have you with us. Your fourth Olympics, are you pumper? or is kind of like another Olympics?

DEVERS: No, I am excited because it's the fourth, at my age that I am going back. This is not anything that I would have imagined in '88. If you would have asked, I would have said I was going to be done after that year.

KAGAN: But you do have some unfinished business here, namely the high hurdles.

DEVERS: Definitely some unfinished business. I am on a mission.

KAGAN: Tell us a little bit about what this particular race and this event means to you.

DEVERS: Well, I am known as a hurdler, and yet the irony is that I have all of my medals in the hundred. So this is the one medal that keeps eluding me, and it has alluded me since 1988, my first Olympic Games. So I think this year is my year. The hundred was taken away from me for a reason, and I think it is a blessing in disguise. This year has been going great for me. I feel great, and I am just hoping that things go into Sydney and stay healthy, and things work out the way they're supposed to.

KAGAN: A little bitter sweet, you mentioned the hundred, for folks who haven't followed your career as well as some of the others of us have, you were trying to three-peat in the hundred meter dash, and you didn't make the U.S. team. You missed it by that much. Any sadness about that?

DEVERS: No, I don't have any regrets. I mean, I knew and I said before I ran the race that let God's will be done. And I think it was. I always believe that I have a guardian angel that rests on my shoulder and guides me to where I am supposed to me. And from the injuries that I have this year and the hundred being taken away, hurdles have just fallen into place.

KAGAN: Now you mentioned '88, that was your first Olympics, also the year that you became sick. And finally, through a long journey, ended up finally figuring out that you has Grave's disease. What was that like to finally figure out what it was, and that has also become another mission of yours to people about thyroid disease.

DEVERS: It has. In '88, wanting to make the team, and making the team, and not competing well. Assuming that, you know, things were supposed to go right and feeling all of these things that were going on with me, and things were not going right, and finding out finally that 2 1/2 years later I have a disorder called Grave's disease. It was very, you know, it was disheartening, first of all, because it is a very debilitating disorder, but it's so common, 13 million Americans have this disorder, and yet half of those people don't know it.

The common symptoms, which I had all of, which would be weight gain or weight loss, depression, brittle nails, all of that, fatigue, and yet no one could give me a very blood test, called a TSH, to determine what was going on with me so that I could get my life back on track.

And once it happened, it let me know that there is a need for education. I have teamed up with the American Medical Women's Association to start a campaign called Grand Central, and go around the country trying to educate people, and it's been working very well, and that is the mission that I am on.

On the track, I run for the gold. Off the track, I am running for the health of America.

KAGAN: And feeling good yourself right now?

DEVERS: I feel good right now, and I am just waiting to get to Atlanta and start saying: Good day, mate.

KAGAN: You mean, Sydney.

DEVERS: Sydney, I am sorry. I could say it in Atlanta to tune myself up so when I get to Sydney I will be prepared.

KAGAN: Absolutely. Just real quickly, as we wrap, Bill, my co- anchor, wanted to know how the nails are doing?

DEVERS: They're growing again.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: She is a rock star.

KAGAN: Looking good. We wish you the best.

DEVERS: Thank you very much. KAGAN: Thanks for your time this morning, Gail Devers, a fine U.S. Olympian. Good luck down there.

DEVERS: Thank you.

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