PARK CITY — Salt Lake's Zach Lund was back on the track he knows by heart, this week, 10 months after being derailed by a rampant case of, well, hair-splitting. Not only was he back, he was winning. He claimed his first-ever World Cup gold medal in Thursday's skeleton competition at Bear Hollow.
A year ago, he was on his way to the Winter Olympics. But suddenly he found himself as inert as the mountains. That's because Propecia, the treatment he had been using for several years to combat thinning hair, contained finasteride, a banned substance.
It was determined he hadn't actually cheated, but he had broken the rules. Just like Chuck Connors in the old TV western "Branded," he was an innocent man, scorned unfairly. In the process, he became perhaps the first athlete in history to be sidelined by male pattern baldness.
But want to know the real irony? The Propecia didn't seem to work.
"I think it might have been more of a mental thing than anything," Lund said, "because I haven't been using it since the day I found out (he was in violation), and I think I have just as much hair as last year."
Then he paused for a rueful chuckle.
"All that for nothing."
After grudgingly sitting out a year, Lund still has trouble believing what occurred. To be told you're fair and honest but ineligible seems incongruous to him.
When you're pulled over for a broken taillight, he says, you may be illegal, but that doesn't mean you know it. So you get a warning ticket. But the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the IOC didn't do him the courtesy. They just placed him on one-year suspension, ending last month in Calgary, where he finished fifth in World Cup competition.
"It's like carpet sanctions," said Lund.
"How fair is that system?" he continued. "Do you think the public would allow the legal system to work that way?"
Some mornings the Westminster College student still wakes up in disbelief. Until Thursday's competition, he complained about trying to get back the drive that put him on the U.S. Olympic team.
"I feel I've lost my edge," he admitted on Wednesday. "Last year I wanted to go out, and I was really feeling confident. I knew I could do some stuff and win. This year I just don't have it yet, and I'm just kind of going through the motions right now. I'm not having fun. There's a bitter taste in my mouth."
That, however, was before his winning performance the next day.
Now he is looking ahead to the Winter Games in 2010. This time he plans to be sliding Propecia-free — even if his head goes as shiny as his racing suit.
Hair, he can live without. But not sliding? Now that's something to get a guy depressed.
It's ironic that hair became an issue in the first place.
Until he was a junior in high school, Lund's nickname was "Mullet." It's true. He was Judge Memorial High's version of Billy Ray Cyrus.
And thanks to the CAS and IOC, he too learned what it means to have an achy-breaky heart.
Lund was a hair-and-music kind of guy. Nine and 11 years younger than his brothers, he followed in their path. They liked Led Zeppelin and so did Zach. Same with Shelby Cobras and Clint Eastwood.
"I still haven't grown out of it," he said.
So he went out this week and, just like The Outlaw Josey Wales, eliminated the competition. His year on (off?) the skids was over.
He finished just 16 one-hundredths of a second ahead of Canadian Jeff Pain.
It may have been a slim margin, but it was a huge one in terms of perspective. You might say he was back on track.
"I guess," said Lund, "you could say I won by a hair."
E-mail: rock@desnews.com