When the 2008 Olympics officially begin Friday, Albert Lea resident Gary Neist will watch and reminisce.

Neist was a member of the 1972 U.S. wrestling team, competing in Greco-Roman wrestling at 163 pounds as a 25-year-old. It was a conflicted time for Neist as it was a great honor to be part of the Olympics, but also disturbing.

The 1972 Games were marred on Sept. 5 when eight Palestinian gunmen broke into an apartment where Israeli athletes were being housed. The gunmen took 11 Israeli athletes hostage; they killed two Israelis during the initial break-in. The gunmen were eventually flown by helicopter to an airport where they were to board a plane for Cairo. A shootout took place between the Palestinians and Germans, ending in the death of nine Israelis, five Palestinians and one German.

Neist remembers the day well. It was the first day of his competition.

“I had gotten up about 4 o’clock in the morning along with the rest of my friends and we were walking over to the administration building to weigh in,” Neist said. “I didn’t hear the shots, some of the guys behind me said they did. Nobody had realized what those shot were, what they meant.”

He competed in his first match of the day at 10 a.m., but the rest of the events were canceled for the day and few of the athletes knew why.

“The press people, of course, as they were finding out about it, were sending all the information home and they weren’t telling the athletes,” Neist said. “Finally we ended up finding out by finding a German TV and listening to the German TV.”

Neist said he wasn’t more than a couple hundred yards away from the Israeli apartment when the attack occurred.

Stunned by the events, Neist didn’t fully realize the happenings until later.

“Our venue for competing was outside the Olympic grounds,” Neist said. “We’d have to get on a bus and travel downtown to get where our competition was. Traveling back and forth you’d meet people on the bus and I still don’t know 100 percent for sure, but I believe I met the coach and one of the weightlifters that got killed. I was talking to them and it sounded like they were weightlifters and then the coach of a weightlifter. It just made sense that they were some of the people that were killed. The next day they had the ceremony for that and the day after we started our competition again. All of those things really didn’t set in until after I got back to Minnesota. There were a lot of people that were very afraid.”

Preparing for his matches allowed Neist not to dwell on the events. Neist finished 15th in the Olympics after losing 6-5 to Momir Kecman of Yugoslavia and 12-4 to Jan Jarlsson of Sweden.

Just making the Olympic team was accomplishment in of itself for Neist as he endured through grueling qualifying matches.

Neist, along with former Albert Lea and Luther College teammate Neal Skaar, set out for the Olympic qualifier, which was held in Anoka. Neist made it through to the Olympic training camp, but Skaar didn’t.

When Neist got to the training camp at the University of Minnesota, there was only one spot left on the team. It was between him and Mike Gallego, a two-time NCAA champion from Fresno State. To say the two were evenly matched would be an understatement.

After five matches each had a win, and they had tied twice. In the decisive sixth match Neist put Gallego in a headlock and pinned him seconds before time ran out.

It was a considerable feat, considering Neist had learned Greco-Roman wrestling a few years prior.

A quick study

Getting drafted into the military might have been the best thing to ever happen to Neist and his wrestling career.

Neist was drafted in 1970 and was given two sets of orders when he entered. The first set ordered him to be trained as a forward observer for the fire direction of artillery.

“That’s people who would go in front of the line and tell the big cannons where to point,” Neist said. “So you’re out there in front of the lines all by yourself. They had a life expectancy of three days.”

The other option was to go to the military academy to be an assistant coach for the wrestling team. An Army lieutenant noticed his impressive prep wrestling career and decided Neist would be best utilized as a wrestling coach for West Point.

It was there Neist learned the Greco-Roman style of wrestling — a style he could come to master.

“It just fit me a little more,” Neist said. “It just became a lot more natural for me to be able to do those types of lifts and throws.”

Neist was already an accomplished freestyle wrestler, winning the state championship in 1964 in the 112 pound weight class by pinning his way through the field as a junior, but had little experience with Greco-Roman wrestling until he met J Robinson at West Point.

Robinson introduced Neist to Greco-Roman wrestling, a style that suited his long arms, broad shoulders and powerful lower body and allowed Neist to throw opponents easily.

“It was a natural fit for him,” Skaar said. “His attributes, especially his long arms, powerful back, shoulders and hips. He could throw people. He could throw just about anyone and he wasn’t bashful. If he put someone on their back it was terminal.”

Although Neist had to adjust to the new style, he was able to make the transition because he exuded a quiet confidence about himself.

“It never occurred to him that he was supposed to be an underdog,” Skaar said.

That mentality helped land him spots in the World Games and several other high-profile wrestling events in his career.

Neist continues to possess that fearlessness at age 61. After graduating with his master’s in 1975, Neist returned to college in 1999 to pursue his doctorate.

Neist completed his doctorate in physical education pedagogy at the University of Nebraska and began teaching at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania.

He moved back to Albert Lea in mid-May when he accepted a position at Minnesota State University.

“It’s something I’ll never forget,” Neist said. “To stand in the stadium with all the other Olympians and know that you’re being watched by a billion people on TV, you kind of get awestruck.”