TheFinalSprint.com is proud to be an official sponsor of the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF).
CAF is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that helps people with physical disabilities pursue an active lifestyle through physical fitness and athletics.
CAF’s mission is clear: give those with the desire to live active, competitive lifestyles every opportunity to compete in the sports they love.
Click here to learn more and to watch a short video about how CAF is changing the lives of athletes with disabilities!
Join us in supporting CAF!
Make your next race more meaningful by registering for the Challenged Athlete Foundation’s Race for a Reason!
Race for a Reason enables you to enhance the experience of training to reach your own personal goal by helping challenged athletes reach theirs. When you raise funds for CAF through the Race for a Reason program, you can run the race of your choice and also earn great incentive prizes!
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The Final Sprint and I have the utmost respect and admiration for handicapped athletes and are proud to be official sponsors of the Challenged Athletes Foundation. These gifted individuals demonstrate incredible resolve and the power of the human spirit by successfully participating, competing and excelling in athletics despite their physical disabilities.
Today’s podcast features an interview with one such hero and TFS’s February 2007 Success Story honoree. His name is Oscar Pistorius and he is a 20-year old South African Paralympic runner known as “The Fastest Thing on No Legs”.
After having both of his legs amputated below the knee when he was only 11-months old, Oscar has exemplified the astounding spirit of these challenged athletes. Oscar is sponsored by Ossur and with the aid of their Cheetah Flex-Foot prosthetics, Oscar has ran his his way to multiple Paralympic gold medals and set world records in the 100, 200 and 400m events. He has also gone on to break his own world records 19 times in a single year and has successfully competed against able-bodied runners.
Having already attained unparalleled success, Oscar is now on the verge of making history once again – but this time by becoming the first amputee to ever compete in the able-bodied Olympics.
However, even if Oscar is able to run a qualifying time, he could still sadly be denied the opportunity to compete in the Olympics because he has attracted a number of critics who believe his prosthetics provide him with an unfair advantage. No able-bodied sports federation, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC), has ever been forced to consider rules for athletes with prosthetics. As the IOC struggles to make decision, Oscar has kept his head-up and pushed forward despite the uncertainty that surrounds his future.
Download the podcast to hear my exclusive interview with Oscar where we discuss his life, historic achievements, the controversy, how he deals with the critics and the very real possibility of him redefining society’s concept of human potential.
Listen In
[MP3] Direct Download (Right click, select “save as”).
[RSS] Add The Final Sprint Podcast RSS feed to your RSS reader to have the show delivered to youHost: Adam Jacobs
Guest: Oscar Pistorius
Producer: Greg Cherniet
Music: Ryan Ahlwardt & Darnell Perkins
File size: 29.4MB
Length: 00:42:55
Interested in featuring The Final Sprint Podcast on your site, blog or My Space page? Click here to learn how!
Oscar Pistorius, a paralympic gold-medalist, is fighting his way to an enormous personal and historical victory. With a mere three-second improvement he will surpass his own world record (47.3 seconds in the 400m) and get a step closer to qualifying for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. If Pistorius succeeds, he could become the first handicapped-athlete to ever compete in the able-bodied Olympics.
Pistorius was born with a condition afflicting his legs; rendering him without bone mass from both the knees down. This condition left him no choice but to have both of his legs amputated; a surgery that took place when he was only eleven-months old.
Although he began his track career just a few, short few years ago, Pistorius has already become quite an accomplished athlete; setting para-athletic world records in the 100m (11.16 sec), 200m (21.97), and 400m length events.
Pistorius is quite optimistic about his chances of achieving his next dream and qualifying for the Olympics; a feat that appears to be rather attainable.
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I was honored to have the opportunity to interview Rudy Garcia-Tolson, The Final Sprint’s Success Story selection for December 2006.
Rudy, a Paralympic gold medalist, lives by the motto “A Brave Heart is a Powerful Weapon”. He was born with several, rare birth defects, including the crippling Pterygium Syndrome. At five years old, after 15 operations, Rudy chose to have both of his legs amputated above the knee to avoid spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Rudy didn’t allow the loss of his legs to stop him and has persevered to become one of the world’s premier athletes. He won a gold medal in the 400m IM at the 2004 Athens Paralympics and has completed a half IRONMAN triathlon.
Download the podcast to learn how Rudy has overcome such tremendous obstacles, defied the odds and become a true testament to the strength of the human spirit.
Listen In
[MP3] Direct Download (Right click, select save as).
[RSS] Add The Final Sprint Podcast RSS feed to your RSS reader to have the show delivered to youHost: Adam Jacobs
Guest: Rudy Garcia-Tolson
Producer: Greg Cherniet
Music: Ryan Ahlwardt & Darnell Perkins
File size: 12.9MB
Length: 00:18:50
Interested in featuring The Final Sprint Podcast on your site, blog or My Space page? Click here to learn how!
American running pioneer Frank Shorter, an Olympic gold and silver medalist in the marathon who has also helped enact important policy changes in the sport of distance running, and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, whose personal battle against obesity led him to take up running, lose 110 pounds and become a passionate national advocate for proper health and nutrition practices, are among the nine runners who are honored this year as Runner’s World magazine’s 2006 Heroes of Running.
Shorter, Huckabee and the seven other 2006 Heroes of Running are featured in the December 2006 issue of Runner’s World on newsstands everywhere October 30, and will be honored by the magazine at a gala event in New York City on Friday, November 3.
Joining Shorter and Huckabee on Runner’s World’s third annual Heroes list are: Read the rest of this entry »
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