Last night, while sitting on my sofa eating animal crackers, I found what I had been waiting for all week; the heartwarming story of this Olympics. I must give my wife the credit though because I was about to go to bed, when she advised me this might be something I might want to see.
The story of Oscar Pistorius or the
Blade Runner as he is commonly referred to as is an intriguing one. He is an
South African 400 meter sprinter who is a double amputee. His goal was to get
to the Olympics and compete against able bodied athletes in the quarter finals.
Although he finished last in his heat, from the smile on his face after the
race, it was more than obvious he had met his objective
The most inspiring thing about Oscar
was how he handled the moment with such style and grace. The announcer said
that if he had done this or done that he could have possibly moved on. The
Blade Runner didn’t seem to care because he seemed to understand the journey he
was on and how hard he had to fight to even get the chance to run.
In 2007, he had been prohibited from
competing due to the fact that many of his peers felt his graphite legs had
given him an unfair advantage. However, in 2008 the ruling was overturned and
he began to train and eventually all that hard work brought him to London. The
moment of his personal triumph was immortalized when at the finish line he and
the winner of the race exchanged name bibs as an act of respect.
This is what I love about the
Olympics as I said in my last post, “the most important thing is to take part.”
After watching Oscar Pistorius’ exhilarating run last night it was as if I was
running on air right along with him, even though I never moved off the couch.
Swavel
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