Peter Kolotouros is training for this summer's Olympic Games.
By Jack Chang
"When I'm running, my mind is completely blank. You don't hear anything," Peter Kolotouros said with a distant look. "Those are the longest 13 seconds in your life."
Actually, Kolotouros hopes it's somewhere between 13.5 and 13.8 seconds. That's the time he needs to qualify for the 110-meter high hurdles in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
He left his native Saratoga last month for Greece, where he will attempt to qualify for the Greek Olympic team.
Both Kolotouros' parents are Greek-born, making him eligible to compete under the Greek flag.
Beginning his hurdling career at Lynbrook High School and continuing it later at Stanford University, Kolotouros is a Saratoga native who hopes to compete with the best in the world.
After training for months at West Valley and Chabot colleges and Stanford University, Kolotouros is trying out for a place on the Greek team. Kolotouros has run many races there. He is among the top five fastest hurdlers in Greece.
"The Greeks are the first to enter the stadium," he said. "That's all I want, to march in the opening ceremonies."
"Winning a medal isn't as important to me as just participating in the Olympics," he said.
Kolotouros has been hurdling ever since his Lynbrook High coach put hurdles in front of him and asked him to try them. Needless to say, he ran them very well, eventually ranking second in California and winning first place in the Central Coast Section.
Hurdling eventually led him to Greece in 1992, where he first tried out for the Greek Olympic team and missed it by three-tenths of a second.
He had injured himself a month before his qualifying race that year and wasn't in top condition.
He said, "That was my biggest disappointment, that I never knew whether I had run my best race."
"I thought I would never have a chance to go back," he said.
Kolotouros came back to the States and became a business development account executive at United Parcel Service. That turned out to be his lucky break.
In 1996, UPS became an official sponsor of the Olympic Games in Atlanta and started the Athlete Training Assistance Program that would give 10 UPS employees worldwide a paid leave to train and compete in the Olympics.
Along with athletes from Sweden, Canada and the United States, Kolotouros was chosen for the program, retaining his full salary while pursuing his Olympic dreams.
"If UPS hadn't done this, I would have never been able to try out again," he said.
His brother Jim, 24, said, "Peter's received a phenomenal opportunity. It's something you should definitely do if you get the chance."
"It'll be different this time because he has the full support of an organization with a vested interest in how he does," Jim Kolotouros continued.
Peter Kolotouros has the support of his family and neighbors, too.
His neighbors around Seagull Way and Cox Avenue helped petition the Saratoga city government to exempt Peter's father, who runs a construction trucking company, from a Saratoga law prohibiting parking large trucks on residential streets.
"It was my father's business. All of our neighbors were aware of what they were doing," Peter Kolotouros said. "We asked our neighbors for support, and they came through."
"The most important thing to an athlete is having a support network, family, neighbors, community," he said. "It can get real lonely training out there."
When Peter runs his qualifying race in Athens on June 15, he will have many people rooting for him in the South Bay.
Not the least will be his brother Jim.
"I am extremely proud of Peter for taking one sport and doing the best he can possibly do in it," he said. "Some of the happiest times in my life have come from Peter's successes."
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, March 6, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved