Tiffany is a roller skater, and she said she encouraged her husband to go for the Olympics one more time. "I wanted him to be satisfied. I didn't want him sitting in front of the TV wishing he had done this."

Parra gets emotional when he refers to Tiffany and her strong emotional support for his Olympic goals. "She put her own life on hold for me. She has a lot of fire in her. She's kicked my behind a few times to jump start my life. I hope to do as much for her."

While Tiffany freely admits to being lonely in Florida without him, she adds that their daughter Mia has reached "the terrible twos," which keeps her busy most of the time just being a mom. "Ninety-five per cent of my conversations are with my daughter."

She looks forward to the day when their relationship will be "a little bit normal — like going to the movies and attending birthday parties. But in the grand scheme of things, what is four years in a 60-year marriage? It isn't that long of a time."

Parra says he visited his family three times last year — for about a week each time, and Tiffany and Mia visited him here once. Tiffany plans to visit again, "just as soon as he is going to be there longer than three days," she said. (The last time they were together was Christmas week.)

Parra says he never thought about writing about his life until last year. "After doing a lot of speeches especially to young people, some of my listeners suggested I put my experiences in a book. So I talked into a microphone at home and while driving, and pretty soon I had a bunch of tapes. I gave them to Pat Quinn, my friend and agent, and he started writing it up."

The first Mexican-American to compete and to win medals at the Olympics, Parra is very personal in the book. He accepts his image among young people as a role model. "I was a dreamer. I wanted to see what was out there in the world. I just wanted to succeed. I never went into the Games thinking about being first in anything. For me, it was a dream of being better than the day before."

Growing up in a Mexican barrio in Southern California, Parra never really considered himself a minority. "We weren't poor, but money was tight. We had hand-me-down clothes, but I was not in rags."

The worst challenge, he said, was coming from a broken home. After his parents divorced, he lived with his dad, but he connected better emotionally with his mother. "My mom supported my dream, and my dad didn't get it. My mom, a marathon runner, is a dreamer; my dad is a doer. She called me all the time, but my dad never asked me any questions."

Parra began roller skating in 1984 at the age of 14, and by 1996 he was the most decorated athlete in the history of the sport. Having won everything but an Olympic medal, Parra switched from in-line skating to ice skating in 1996.