When triathlete Kevin McDowell crossed the finish line in sixth place Monday morning, it marked the final steps in a difficult journey begun more than a decade ago in suburban Geneva.
It was the best finish by an American male at an Olympics. And, most likely, the hardest earned.
“Ten years ago, I was so sick and I didn’t know what was going to happen,” the 28-year-old said after the race. “So to be here and competing — not just participating at the Olympics, but actually being in contention — I’m living the dream right now.”
In March 2011, McDowell’s life seemed more like a nightmare.
Then 18, he had been home from his first professional competition for only a few minutes when his mother noticed a swollen area between his neck and collarbone. Traci McDowell, a registered nurse, touched the spot and recognized its rubbery feel as a symptom of lymphoma, a cancer that begins in the immune system’s infection-fighting cells.
“I instantly got nauseous,” she said.
She took her son to the doctor the next morning, hoping she was mistaken, in spite of her medical background, and that the swelling wasn’t anything more than a muscle tear.
Tests later confirmed it was Hodgkin lymphoma, a highly treatable cancer that would still ravage McDowell’s young body and threaten to destroy his promising athletic career. The reigning world junior bronze medalist at the time, McDowell had just graduated early from Geneva High School so he could begin the professional circuit before college. He had a full scholarship waiting for him at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, too, and an invitation to train at the nearby U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center.
The teen put all those plans on hold, without knowing when — if ever — he would get back to them.
“My mindset went from wanting to be a world champion to just wanting to beat cancer,” McDowell told the Tribune before leaving for Tokyo. “My whole world was upside down.”
At his first chemotherapy session, McDowell met a woman who gave him a piece of unsolicited advice: Live your life as normal as possible.
For McDowell, a normal life was one that focused heavily on triathlon, a sport he had to beg his parents to try when he was a boy. A strong competitive swimmer with an abundance of energy, McDowell was first invited to join a local youth triathlon team when he was 9, but his parents thought he was too young to specialize in a sport. They wanted him to be more well-rounded, to try other things like baseball and basketball before making a commitment to a single activity.
When they turned down the triathlon team’s invitation a second time, 10-year-old Kevin took matters into his own hands. He called a family meeting, the first — and so far, only — time he has convened one, his mother said.
“I don’t really like baseball and basketball is OK,” he told his parents as they sat at the kitchen table. “But I really like to swim and run. And I really want to try this tri team. Don’t you think that I should get to decide what I want to do?”
His parents relented and allowed him to join the Multisport Madness triathlon team in St. Charles, where he found early success. He was USA Triathlon’s junior athlete of the year in 2009 and 2010 and represented Team USA at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, where he earned silver in the individual event and bronze in the mixed relay.
Favored to win the junior world championships in 2011, he withdrew from competition after his diagnosis. But he stayed close to the triathlon world in a concerted effort to maintain normalcy as he began his 12-session course of chemotherapy.
“I would finish my chemo and then go on runs right after with my triathlon team, which is crazy to think about now,” he said.
That pace, however, didn’t last as the treatments soon took a toll on his body, leaving him too sick to even leave his bed some days. When he felt well enough, he would find comfort spending time with friends and coaching the young kids at his triathlon club.
“They became my new project,” he said. “I wanted to take my mind away from all that was lost and instead focus on what I could still do.”
He returned to racing in spring 2012, but the competition began a frustrating cycle of improvement followed by regression. He would have some success, then suffer a stress fracture. Find success again, then discover he was anemic.
He took another break from competition in 2013, throwing himself into school and limiting his training to one activity a day.
“I kept telling myself that I was fine. I was perfect. The cancer was over, so there was no excuse,” he said. “I never let myself regain my strength. I never let my body heal from all the chemo and damage it had done.”
It would be years of trial and error before he found a conditioning and nutrition routine that worked for him. McDowell didn’t finish growing until two years ago, when his body seemed to finally complete puberty that was paused by chemotherapy.
“It was really very difficult to watch,” his mother said. “He didn’t go from having cancer to making the Olympics. There was a lot of hard stuff in between and he wants people to know that.”
After serving as an alternate for the 2016 Summer Games, McDowell made his Olympic debut Monday at Odaiba Marine Park, a coastal tourist attraction with views of Tokyo’s iconic Rainbow Bridge. Having never finished higher than 11th in a World Triathlon Championship Series, he decided if he would “be over the moon” if he finished in the top eight in the competition.
He came out of the water in 47th place, so far back that he said he wondered if the race had already ended for him. He caught up on the bike portion, then led at parts of the 10K run before eventually being overtaken by gold medalist Kristian Blummenfelt of Norway.
McDowell finished in sixth with a time of 1 minute, 45:54 seconds, the best showing for an American male since the sport’s debut in 2000. The previous best was seventh place, achieved by Hunter Kemper.
“I felt so strong on the bike,” McDowell said, “and I just went for it on the run. I just kept telling myself to ‘back yourself, back yourself.’ Honestly, I never imagined myself coming here and vying for a medal.”
As he pushed through those final laps, McDowell said he thought about his 10-year-old self and how far he has come since calling that family meeting and demanding that he be allowed to try triathlons.
“He was a fighter,” McDowell said, laughing at the memory of the long-ago meeting. “So I was like, ‘let’s go out there and be a fighter like 10-year-old Kevin.'”
McDowell still has another shot at a medal this week in the mixed relay, a new Olympic event in which two men and two women complete all three legs of a shortened course. USA Triathlon officials picked McDowell — who was part of a U.S. team that won bronze at the 2018 world championships — for the Tokyo Games largely because of the experience and skill he will bring to the inaugural competition.
Since arriving in Japan, McDowell said he spent time reading letters from family and friends back home. The well wishes, he said, helped take his mind off the race and appreciate the path he followed. He saved three notes — ones from his parents, sister and grandparents — to read right before the race.
They told him to chase his dream.
And so he did.
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