Two things conspired Saturday for J.R. Salzman to depose Jamie Fischer's reign atop the Boom Run podium. Fischer, for the first time in five ESPN Great Outdoor Games Boom Run events, finally fell. And Salzman has found focus and peace in the possibility he may go to war.

It was an unusually tame Salzman who in the finals eked past Great Outdoor Games newcomer Carl Rick 15.543 seconds to 15.698. Clad in sunglasses, black Army shorts and a 34th Infantry Division T-shirt, he accepted the win with more grace than he has shown in past years. He then gave a shout out to his infantry unit, most of whom shipped out to Kosovo shortly after he joined the National Guard last Sept. 9, a move he had been weighing since Sept. 11, 2001.

In January he reported to Fort Benning, Ga., for 14 weeks of weapons training and "a whole lot of push-ups," he said. Days lugging 30-pound weapons and 100-pound backpacks has left Salzman, 25, in good enough physical shape that he won despite not having run on a boom in nearly a year.

"Everybody's like, 'You've mellowed out a lot,'" Salzman said. "I've come to realize that if I'm five minutes late to work, if I forget something at home, it's not the end of the world. I don't have somebody shooting at me on my way to work, I don't have bombs going off in the road as I'm driving. What do I have to get worked up about?"

At times in past competitions, Salzman has come off as hot headed, cocky and even petulant. After losing the Log Roll final to Fischer last year, he skulked off to a corner of the Reno event grounds and assaulted a chain-link fence until his knuckles bled.

Now, he faces the sobering possibility of being shipped out to Kosovo, Afghanistan or Iraq in the coming months. Gone is the glibness.

"I hope I can go out there and help make a difference, help everybody out there around the world live the kind of lives we do," he said. "Spoiled Americans — a lot of people don't appreciate it."

The 10-time Great Outdoor Games medalist has never finished lower than third in any event, but hadn't won a gold since 2001.

Rick, who trains with Fischer, beat the two-time reigning gold medalist in the semifinals when the top-ranked Fischer slipped and landed stomach-first on a log near the end of the race. Though winded, Fischer managed to finish in 16.823 seconds to Rick's 15.176.

Fischer outraced Cassidy Scheer, of Hayward, Wis., for the bronze, and accepted his medal with an ambivalent half-smile on his face. Fischer, a student studying elementary education, was competing just four hours from his hometown Stillwater, Minn., so his first Great Outdoor Games competition fall came in front of family, friends and sponsors, after winning five previous gold medals in Boom Run events

"I had a whole bunch of people come up, and I felt like I let them all down," Fischer said. "And there's nothing I would change about that last run, either. I don't feel like I tripped, I don't feel like I crashed. I felt like I put my foot down and there was nothing there."

The fall made Rick's medal likewise bittersweet. "I hate to beat Jamie like that," he said.

A student from Onalaska, Wis., and the alternate runner last year, Rick had worked up to fifth in the world rankings. Then, two weeks before the Great Outdoor Games, he broke the fifth metacarpal in his right hand when he fell off a boom and hit the bottom of the tank. He was out of commission for a couple of days. Yet he still missed the gold medal by only a fifth of a second. "I thought if I stayed up, I stood a chance" against Salzman, he said.

Fischer's cousin Tanya Fischer, who later took the bronze medal in the women's Boom Run, had a reaction like much of the crowd who watched Jamie's spill: "It was shocking."

Final Standing
1 JR Salzman, Rochester, Minn.
2 Carl Rick, Onalaska, Wis.
3 Jamie Fischer, Stillwater, Minn.
4 Cassidy Scheer, Hayward, Wis.
5 Doug Goodmundson, Wayzata, Minn.
5 Fred Scheer, Hayward, Wis.
5 John Wells, River Falls, Wis.
5 Tyler Fischer, Hudson, Wis.

Results (By Round)

Final Round
JR Salzman 15.543 Split: 07.512 def Carl Rick 15.696 Split: 00.836

Consolation Round
Jamie Fischer 14.119 Split: 06.938 def Cassidy Scheer 10:00.000 Split: 07.827

Semi-Final Round
Carl Rick 15.176 Split: 07.333 def Jamie Fischer 16.823 Split: 06.417
JR Salzman 20.618 Split: 07.819 def Cassidy Scheer 10:00.000 Split: 07.265

Quarter-Final Round
Jamie Fischer 13.448 Split: 06.945 def John Wells 23.118 Split: 07.102
Carl Rick 15.493 Split: 07.623 def Doug Goodmundson 10:00.000 Split: 07.935
JR Salzman 21.629 Split: 07.818 def Tyler Fischer 10:00.000 Split: 08.124
Cassidy Scheer 20.234 Split: 08.089 def Fred Scheer 28.539 Split: 08.313