U.S. OLYMPIC RACE WALKING TEAM Heppner despondent after failing to qualify
He apparently committed suicide after placing fifth in the 50-kilometer team trials.
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A loss in a grueling qualifying event left him physically exhausted and filled with what a friend described as a numbing sadness, but Albert Heppner still had a chance to win a spot on the U.S. Olympic race walking team.
Heppner had finished a disappointing fifth in the 50-kilometer team trials last Sunday morning in suburban Chula Vista, pulling away from the pack way too early and then fading, leaving him sprawled on a cot afterward, spent and despondent.
In two months, though, there would be another opportunity for one of America's top race walkers to qualify for the Athens Games. Everyone in the small, tight-knit race walking community knew the 29-year-old Army specialist was competitive enough to do it.
Instead, Heppner's Olympic quest ended sometime in the middle of a rainy, foggy night, when he apparently drove to one of the tallest bridges in San Diego County and jumped 450 feet to his death. His body was found in a thicket of sagebrush and manzanita at the bottom of a rocky gorge early Thursday morning. The California Highway Patrol said it was a suspected suicide.
Heppner, a college graduate from Columbia, Md., who was described as fun-loving and outgoing, didn't leave a note or a hint of why he did it.
"Sport isn't supposed to be that serious," said Vince Peters, national chairman of the USA Track & amp; Field Racewalk Committee who considered Heppner a friend.
End of promising life
Friends marveled that Heppner seemed to know everyone at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, even the athletes in other sports. Now they're struggling with the sad end of a promising life.
"I love Al and we're all crushed," said Tracy Sundlun of San Diego's Elite Racing Inc., which managed Sunday's race. "It's a shame, because he had everything. He really had everything."
Heppner's teammates tried to fathom why he would kill himself even though he apparently knew he could still qualify for Athens in the grueling 31.1-mile event if he met the 4-hour standard at an international meet in May in Germany.
Curt Clausen, the only walker to earn an Olympic berth Sunday after winning the race in 3 hours, 58 minutes, 24 seconds, said Heppner called him hours after the race, looking for advice.