Inside Klete Keller's fall from Olympic gold to the Capitol riot

[Demovictory9]

** really long sad story***


The USC graduate had been among the world’s elite freestyle swimmers in the 2000s, competing in three Olympics and winning two gold medals. Friends and fellow swimmers knew him as easygoing and likable. Now they were mystified. Why had someone who spent much of his life representing his country joined the mob to attack a defining symbol of American democracy?

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Hundreds of pages of court records, emails and interviews with more than 30 friends, teammates and associates show that Keller’s journey to the Capitol was the latest and most bewildering choice in a life beset by struggles since retiring from swimming more than a decade ago. A revolving series of jobs. Divorce. Living in his car for 10 months. A bitter child custody dispute. Allegations of erratic behavior.

His ex-wife testified in a child custody trial in October 2020 that he had attempted suicide and, after they separated, pinned her against a wall and asked whether she had “ever heard of marital rape.” Keller denied the allegation in a court filing. He described himself during the trial as “overwhelmed” and “lost” in the years after his career ended. The belonging and identity he found while swimming eluded him on dry land.

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In an interview with NBC’s Olympic Talk blog in spring 2014, Keller sounded conflicted about his years of swimming: “I should have put a lot more time into thinking about careers and what I was doing after swimming. … I still probably hold some bitterness toward myself mostly, but also a little bit toward my sport because I let myself get too deep into it. I’m still not quite over that, unfortunately, but I’m working on it.”

Sherrill sued Keller for child support in Mecklenburg County District Court in North Carolina and, that September, Judge Christy T. Mann ordered him to pay $191 a month and get a full-time job. The judge wrote: “Defendant’s underemployment is voluntary and is a result of Defendant’s naive indifference to his children’s immediate financial needs.”


https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-01-04/olympic-swimmer-klete-keller-capitol-riot-jan-6-anniversary