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Mario was super despite the obstacles

By Larry Schwartz
Special to ESPN.com

Tuesday, August 29, 2000

"Mario was one guy that could really motivate me to push my game to another level. I knew eventually he was going to chase me down and pull me back. That was inevitable," says Wayne Gretzky on ESPN Classic's SportsCentury series. He was born, like others of French heritage, with the surname Lemieux, which translates into "the best." Only Mario, though, was possessed with the talent to live up to the name. In the late eighties and half of the nineties (when his health permitted it), the 6-foot- ...

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