Short of Kilimanjaro Summit, Martina Navratilova Still Conquering Boundaries

Fear, Martina Navratilova was saying the other day, is always bigger than the act. She used to dread flying, so she got her pilot's license. Drowning terrified her, so she learned to scuba dive.

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro was meant to be the logical extension in a life spent pushing boundaries and swatting away phobias. The tennis legend who earlier this year battled breast cancer was four days into her trek up the 19,341-foot mountain in Tanzania when she became ill around the 14,800-foot level Friday, and had to be assisted down by porters.

Navratilova, 54, was driven first to the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre and then flown to Nairobi Hospital, where tests showed she was suffering from high altitude pulmonary edema -- an accumulation of fluid in the lungs.

Dr David Silverstein, consultant in cardiology and internal medicine at Nairobi Hospital, said Navratilova was being treated with diuretics to remove the fluid, and was expected to be hospitalized for two to three days. "It is potentially dangerous when someone is at high altitude, but once brought down, recovery is quick. Martina is doing well and will continue to do well," he said. "There will be no effects to long term health and patients get back to full fitness in due course. Martina's acute condition is not reflective of her health or fitness. It occurs in some people in conditions of low oxygen."

Navratilova was accompanied up "Kili" by a team of 27, including German Paralympian cyclist Michael Teuber, to raise funds for the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, a charity that supports community sports projects around the world. Unseasonable blizzards, thick mist and bitter cold made the climb along the Rongai Route especially treacherous. Guides said the weather was most unusual, and the team was urged to go "pole, pole" (slowly, slowly). More than 25,000 people per year attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak; less than half succeed. It is estimated about 10 climbers die from the venture each year, along with an equal number of local porters.

"It's that fear of the unknown. I face it head on. I guess I have that inner confidence. I'm not afraid of failing."
-- Martina Navratilova From her bed at Nairobi Hospital, Navratilova said in a statement: "I'm disappointed not to be able to complete this amazing journey. It was something that I have wanted to do for so long, but it was not to be. I am so pleased that we got it going and I will be watching and waiting for news from the climb when they reach the summit (Saturday). I didn't make it, but I think it has been a great success as we have raised funds and awareness for the work that Laureus does."

Navratilova's year began with a thud, literally. She broke her arm ice skating in January. "Nobody touched me, I just fell," Navratilova said with a laugh two days before she and the Laureus team began the climb at the village of Nale Moru, just south of the Kenya-Tanzania border.

Speaking to four sports journalists, including FanHouse, via a rough cell phone connection from Nairobi, Navratilova was her typical upbeat life force, determined to inspire the children from the African slums and women around the world who have breast cancer and, basically, anyone afraid to try. Hers is an attitude you'd expect from someone who defected from Communist Czechoslovakia at age 18, all positive grit colliding with limitless curiosity. Age and odds have never defined her, just as the Iron Curtain's restraints and a monster of a mountain didn't frighten her.

"It was a lousy beginning of the year for me so I'm hoping to end on a high note and get to the top (of Kilimanjaro)," she told us, her optimism burning through the phone line even as her words faded in and out.

Diagnosed with breast cancer in February, Navratilova said the six weeks of radiation sapped her physically and emotionally. She was tired and depressed, typical side effects from the treatment, but then she mentioned missing only one day of playing tennis, and taking all of two naps throughout the ordeal, and we were reminded again that the woman who won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 Grand Slam women's doubles titles (an all-time record), and 10 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles has an indefatigable internal drive.

With her radiotherapy treatments finished in June and her body declared cancer-free, Navratilova leaped at the chance to climb Kilimanjaro when Laureus, a program she's been involved with since its inception 10 years ago, asked her to join their fund-raising trek. Isn't that what most mortals would want just months removed from being pumped full of poisonous toxins? Typical Navratilova, she flipped the question, made it sound as if climbing the world's highest freestanding mountain was the most logical thing a person could do after conquering cancer.

"It's that fear of the unknown. I face it head on," she said. "I guess I have that inner confidence. I'm not afraid of failing."

That afternoon, barely 48 hours before the team began its journey towards the jagged peaks of Mawenzi, Navratilova visited Mathare, one of the largest, filthiest and bleakest slums on the planet. The living conditions are unimaginable, no running water or electricity, families living under wet cardboard, HIV/AIDS and other diseases widespread. "You walk around and the stench is overwhelming, and there's just stuff everywhere -- garbage, trash, human feces," Navratilova said.

But there is hope, and laughter, and it can be found on the dusty soccer fields where kids once kicked around balls fashioned from trash. The Mathare Youth Soccer Association, funded by Laureus, has turned the game into an empowering tool in which self-esteem and self-awareness run side by side. The children of the slum, some 25,000 strong (including 5,000 girls in a country where gender discrimination is the norm), actually own the playing fields and the surrounding land, and after every match they are responsible for picking up rubbish and taking care of the property.

"The skill level is really just astonishing. It's so nice to see these kids in this environment where it's safe and supportive for them while they're living in total squalor," Navratilova said, after partaking in a pick-up game with some of the children. The more she spoke about the horrendous circumstances in which they exist, and the rampant joy one soccer ball could inspire and the social change it might bring, the more it seemed perfectly sensible that she would climb 19,000 feet to raise money to help these kids rise out of crushing poverty.

She expected the ascent to take six days. Optimistically tucked in her gear was a tennis racket, so she could hit a few balls in the thin air once the team reached the summit. Navratilova had never attempted anything like this before, but fear, as she reminded us, was a poor excuse of an obstacle.

"It's going to get harder and harder and colder and colder as we keep climbing," she predicted. "You can get pretty silly by about 14,000 feet and we'll still have to go to 19,000 feet. It's a matter of managing energy, not trying to rush anything, listening to the porters. A lot of people don't make it because the altitude sickness gets to them, and that's something you can't overcome with willpower (or saying) 'I'll just ignore this splitting headache.' You can get into all kinds of trouble and die if you do that."

Even those who are in incredible shape don't always succeed, she added. And she noted it would be pretty difficult to feel sorry for herself with Teuber, the German cyclist who has prosthetic legs, trekking alongside. ("(He's) amazing, he keeps walking past me at a great pace, and he doesn't stop smiling," she later wrote on day two of her blog for the Laureus site.)

"Going out of my comfort zone, I don't know what to expect, but I'm willing to take a chance," she said. "People don't get on their journey because they're too afraid to fail ... I don't do crazy stuff where if I fail I die. That doesn't appeal to me. But I do like to push my boundaries.

"That old saying 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' is true. It's just taking that first step. Then you're on your way, you're one step closer. To me, there's more fear not to confront fear, because then it always stays with you."

Technology, favorable conditions and her lungs willing, Navratilova planned to call FanHouse once or twice from the mountain, to deliver live reports. Those calls never came, and her blog went from anecdotes on the second day about how the porters' singing kept the team going, to a rather dim missive by day four after crossing the windswept Saddle.

"It seems to be constantly steep and as we started to approach the highest point yet, 4,500 metres above sea level, sheer exhaustion sets in for much of the group, and with heavy legs and chests pounding due to a lack of oxygen, every step becomes an effort."

Now, as unsubstantiated reports circle about others in her team abandoning the climb, Navratilova lies in Nairobi Hospital, joining the thousands of experienced and amateur climbers forced each year to turn back before reaching Uhuru Peak. Her lousy year, unfortunately, didn't end as planned, with a giddy dance atop the summit and tennis balls flying in the gossamer air.

But Kilimanjaro didn't defeat her, not this woman who beat cancer, not this woman who has converted an illustrious tennis career into a crusade to help fund and forward sporting endeavors in Africa so the impoverished might be empowered.

"To me, the biggest tragedy is not to try," she said before taking that first step last Monday on a small path winding through gentle fields of maize and potatoes, and looking up through mist at the loads of snow on the summit, and marveling at this beauty of a challenge.