Sportspersons Who Defeated Disability and Cancer

Few sportsmen have defied their disability and trumped the ace.  Lance Armstrong, the American professional road racing cyclist who had won the Tour de France  record seven consecutive years after having survived testicular cancer is now a legend.

Oscar Pistorius, known as the ‘Blade Runner’, is currently in the news and has been included in the TIME magazine’s list of ‘the 100 most influential people in the world’ of 2012.

Oscar, born to a sport mad family in 1986 in Johannesburg, started his life with a disability. Born without the fibula, the long, slender bone running along the outer side of the leg below the knee joint down to the ankle in each leg, he posed a mighty problem to his parents and doctors. When he was eleven months old, his legs were amputated below the knee joint.

Thanks to the perseverance of his gutsy mother who died when Oscar was fifteen, he never felt weighed down by his disability and pursued sports and games vigorously.  Rugby union, water polo and tennis were his favorites. He dealt his disability with humor and took part in various international meets for disabled and Paralympics. In 2008 summer Paralympics, he took the gold in 100, 200 and 400 meters.

Earlier in 2006, he was conferred the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze (OIB) by the President of the Republic of South Africa, and in 2007, he was the BBC sports personality of the year.

He made an indelible entry in the annals of sport on 13th July 2007 when he first competed internationally against the able bodied athletes at Rome. Today, he is acclaimed as ‘the fastest man on no legs’ and his autobiography, Dream Runner has been published, first in Italian and later in English. Tom Hanks is now toying with the idea of making a movie about him.

However, life has not been all honky dory for him.  Once, in Amsterdam, he was arrested by the airport police as traces of gun powder were found on his prosthetic legs.

In February 2009, he suffered serious head and facial injuries in a boat accident.

The carbon fiber transtibial artificial limbs, which enable Oscar to compete, have also generated considerable claims that they give him an advantage over other athletes not using such a device. The IAAF (International Association of Athletic Federation) has ruled him ineligible to take part in Summer Olympics 2008. Fortunately for him, the Court of Arbitrator for Sport overturned the decision on 16th May 2008.

In July 2011, he achieved the qualifying standard for the World Cup 2011 and Summer Olympics 2012 and won a medal as part of South Africa’s silver medal winning relay team. This made him the first amputee to win an able-bodied world track medal.

The world’s most famous double amputee is now waiting for his chance to compete in the Summer Olympics London 2012.

In India, Yuvraj Singh, a young cricketer of repute, has just joined his team in the IPL after undergoing chemotherapy for two months for a tumor in the lungs.

South African Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius (born 22 November 1986), taking part in the Landsmót ungmennafélags Íslands in Kópavogur, Iceland, the largest sporting event in Iceland which is held every three years. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These sportspersons will inspire disabled people for many decades to scale new heights. They have proved that nothing is impossible.