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Built to LastDate: 01.03.2007
Posted by: Anabolic Info Team United States
If you take away the thousands of athletes competing at the Columbus Convention Center, the UFC event at Nationwide Arena, and the booths, supplements and six-foot blondes just barely dressed in leather handing out protein shakes (nah, on second thought, keep them), then what have you got left this weekend?
Tucked away in Veterans Memorial, on the other side of the river, you've got Saturday night's Arnold Classic—the reason this whole weekend started 18 years ago, and the competition that's widely recognized as the pinnacle of its sport.
And to most who have seen the Classic over the last two decades, one name has stood out: Flex Wheeler.
Coupling a charismatic personality with staggering size, symmetry and definition, Wheeler became the face of the competition and drew praise from Schwarzenegger himself as the torchbearer for a new generation of bodybuilders.
After winning his fourth Classic title in 2000, though, things began to change for Wheeler—though most didn't know why.
He was diagnosed that year with what some call "the most aggressive kidney disease known to man," focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. Wheeler underwent a kidney transplant in September 2003, only to suffer several setbacks and nine "close-call" surgeries over an 11-week period, before finally being released from the hospital the following January.
By that time there was no way to keep his illness hidden anymore.
"I kept things very private," said Wheeler. "When I was first diagnosed, I of course asked the doctor if this was something that could have come about from steroid use. When he assured me this was instead an extremely rare disease that has been known to affect even children, I was devastated."
So instead of letting it be known anything was wrong, he suffered silently with both the disease and the possibility it could be passed down to future generations.
"That, for me, was the toughest part, and why I didn't tell anyone. If I said I was sick, someone would invariably dismiss my claim that it was a serious illness, and immediately point to steroid use, which it wasn't linked to. It was so hard for me to know that someday my children, or even great-grandchildren for that matter, could face the battle that I've had to go through, that I didn't want to have to deal with someone questioning what was really wrong with me."
Over the course of 2004, his strength and stamina finally began to return with the help of martial arts training, an interest of Wheeler's since his youth.
"I thought I'd like to compete at the 2005 Arnold in the martial arts competition, and when I told [Arnold producer] Jim Lorimer about this, he decided to set up a top-level fight for me, which finally gave me the boost and motivation I needed to really start getting back into shape."
Wheeler (admittedly still not fully recovered) won his fight, but he's returning to Columbus this year in a different role.
"I'm getting too old to compete with all those young guys," he said. "And I can honestly say there isn't a part of me that wants to get back into bodybuilding. I love the sport—it's given me everything I have in my life—but it's so nice to come here without the 300-pound gorilla of competing and just sit in the audience and enjoy the show."
Instead, he now represents some of the top sponsors of the weekend, helping hand out trophies as opposed to winning them, and he also writes and takes photos for Muscular Development Magazine. This August he's even putting on the second annual Flex Wheeler Classic in Fresno, California.
"I definitely want to ask Jim about some pointers on how to do mine. I think there's probably one or two things he knows about putting on a competition," he joked.
"He's really the master at this," Wheeler said of Lorimer. "Arnold puts his full support into this as well. You would think he has enough on his plate, but he said he would never turn his back on the sport and it's apparent he hasn't."
Given the second chance, Wheeler, to so many the second coming of Schwarzenegger, hopes to carry on that legacy.
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