I have just spotted this amazing story on the “Inside Para Sport” website about South African athlete Oscar Pistorious – aka the “Blade Runner”!

The 22 year old South African athlete who competes over 400m on the athletics track, is aiming to compete in both the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.

Blade Runner going for gold!

Check out the story to read more… I think you might be inspired!

http://www.insideworldparasport.biz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8304:pistorius-aims-for-olympics-but-paralympics-will-always-remain-goal&catid=145:news&Itemid=303

Filme da W+K Amsterdam para Nike com o velocista Sul-Africano Oscar Pistorius. Pistorius foi centro de uma polemica ao tentar qualificacao para as provas principais de Beijim 2008, ao inves de disputar a para-olimpiadas. Vozes contrarias a sua participacao diziam que ele teria vantagem frente a outros corredores devido as modernas proteses de friba de carbono. 

Embora nao tenha conseguido indice de qualificacao para os jogos deste ano, Pistorius, que tem apenas 22 anos, promete participacao nos jogos de Londres 2012. Se conseguir, o mundo vai parar para assisti-lo.   

Hi All,

I know, I would have written this post long back. But, time didn’t permitted me from last few weeks because of my work. This weekend I spent lot of time reading blogs and watching movies.

Here we go….. with the continuation of my previous post “Those who influenced me”.

Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie:

I (may be every one) Know Angelina as a world’s sexiest celebrity. And Brad as her husband, the hero of some of the hit movies of Hollywood.  And this couple, I know them as  the hottest couple of Hollywood.  I never realized that there could be a such a good background for a this couple.

As a team, actors Brad Pitt, 44, and Angelina Jolie, 32, have served as our goodwill ambassadors worldwide. They brought help to Pakistan in 2005, after a catastrophic earthquake killed tens of thousands of people and left millions homeless. They have tended to the poor and sick in Africa. And they’ve raised global awareness—and contributed $1 million of their own money—for the victims of atrocities in Darfur. Brad co-founded Not on Our Watch, an organization set up to focus global attention on Darfur and other hot spots.

In the U.S., Brad and Angelina didn’t just talk about, or even just throw money at, the tragic fallout from Hurricane Katrina. They actually moved to New Orleans and have set about trying to make right what so many have made wrong. Brad established a project to finance and build 150 new homes in the Ninth Ward.

Angelina has worked tirelessly through the United Nations on behalf of refugees around the world, touring border camps in Africa, Asia and Latin America and lobbying on Capitol Hill. The couple cares for three adopted children, from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam, in addition to their biological daughter.

Oscar Pistorious:

Some time back, I got a forward email to my office id. That mail was very inspirational and I there was also a picture of a George W Bush jogging with a guy who has both of this legs disabled. Initially i thought that it is some kind of photoshop trick (which i always experiment on) and left it unread.

But, after reading about Oscar Pistorious, 21, I could recall the mail which I read long time back. I promise you…..He is not a normal guy. He has got lot of determination and confidence  about his decision and yes. He made a difference.

After reading the following two paragraphs you will say….

“Disability, is no more a barrier to achieve the heights of success in your life”.

When Oscar Pistorius’ lower legs were amputated at age 1, few would have banked on this South African challenging world-class sprinters. At 20, when he began to close in on an Olympic-qualifying time for the 400 m, experts posited that his times were so good, he must have been getting an un-fair advantage from his bladelike prosthetics. When he set his sights on the Olympic Games in Beijing, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ruled he couldn’t compete against able-bodied athletes. An IAAF-initiated study found that more energy is returned to Pistorius’ upper legs from his blades than from ankles and calf muscles and that he uses less oxygen.

Pistorius, 21, is appealing, on the basis of studies with differing results. It was only recently that living with prosthetic legs was seen as a huge impediment, but he has turned this perception upside down. He’s on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage. Yet we mustn’t lose sight of what makes an athlete great. It’s too easy to credit Pistorius’ success to technology. Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it’s what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion.

Erik Weihenmayer:

Even though he is not one of “Time 100 2008″, I just couldn’t shut my mouth speakning about this guys I would like to change the phrase that I have mentioned in my previous post. Here it goes.

“Disability, is no more a barrier to reach the Pinnacle of success”.

And for Erik, that pinnacle is Mount Everest. Can you believe that a blind person was able to climb the world’s highest mountain?  Yeah…Eric did it.

Eric Weihenmayer, 33, is the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. He also completed the seven summits in september 2002. His complete story was covered in the Time Article titled Blind to Failure.

Eric Says …….

When I was learning how to climb mountains as a blind person, I had a lot of encouragement from experts. But after I summited Mount Everest, these people weren’t ready to accept what I had done at face value. Some said I must have cheated; one even claimed I had an unfair advantage: “I’d climb Mount Everest too if I couldn’t see how far I had to fall.”

Its time to go to sleep……Time is 2.18 AM (very late in the night).

I may have to realease Part 3 of this series..

Untill then,

Cheers,

Durga Prasad.

Apparently we aren’t the only ones that believe Oscar Pistorious’ inclusion in the Olympics is unfair.

>>>Read Article Here<<<