Athens-bound Argentine overcomes family griefs

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro — Nobody going to the Athens Olympics has a sad story quite like Walter Herrmann's.

It's a horror story — all of it true — filled with death, grieving, resiliency and more death.

Not many people outside of Argentina and Spain have heard of Walter Herrmann, a 25-year-old, 6-foot-9 reserve forward for the South American country. He's one of only two changes to the team that won the silver medal at the 2002 World Basketball Championships — in large part because of his ability to overcome tragedy.

On a sunny afternoon in July 2003, Herrmann lost the three most important women in his life: his fiancee, his mother and his younger sister. Exactly one year later, on a day Herrmann played one of his greatest games, his father died.

"I couldn't imagine the pain," said Argentine teammate Pepe Sanchez, a former NBA guard. "It's very tragic, and I admire him for standing up and keeping on going in life, because I don't know what I would do if that was me."

Herrmann's initial loss happened when the three women, along with a friend of his mother's and her daughter, were driving down a two-lane country road. They collided head-on with another car occupied by an older couple, and all seven people died.

"I suppose that someone fell asleep. I can't explain it at all. Nobody can," Herrmann said.

He was in the Argentine city of La Plata that day, training with the national team, and the memory of his disbelief, shock and anger remains vivid.

"I knew they were going to visit my girlfriend's family," he recalled, speaking through a translator. "That day I took a siesta and woke up at 6 in the afternoon and called my girlfriend's house. That's when I got the news about my girlfriend only. I didn't know about the others. I was choked up, and I broke everything in the hotel room."

As Herrmann drove to an airfield to take a private plane to Buenos Aires, he began making phone calls and discovered the news was far worse. Not only had the car crash claimed the life of his fiancee — champion swimmer Maria Yanina Garrone — it also had killed his mother, Maria Christina Heinrich, and his younger sister, Barbara.

"I got to Buenos Aires and met my other sister, and about 2 a.m., I took my car and drove 200 kilometers to the village where my girlfriend's family lived. I stayed two hours to mourn with the bodies," he said. "Everything happened so quickly, it was a crazy day and I couldn't comprehend what had happened."

At the insistence of his older sister, Herrmann returned to Spain to resume his basketball career.