Friday, October 7, 2011

Pop Culture Narrative


Blade Runner
I've been running for as long as I can remember. As a kid I would run when others rode bikes, and ran track and cross country in middle and high school. I got to be half decent at running and took advantage of a scholarship offer from the university of Cincinnati for the 110m high hurdles. I'd considered multiple times to give up on running competitively because everyone else was faster than I was. When I really considered giving up track my senior year I came across the story of Oscar Pistorius.
Oscar Pistorius is a track athlete who has every reason to give up running. He had both of his legs amputated right below his knees at the age of 1. He never gave up and with the help of high-tech prosthetics was able to walk and run again. But not only did he have the ability to run again, but he had the ability to run well enough to beat people and start winning competitions. Then, in 2007 he was banned because they said he had an "unfair advantage" over ble-bodied athletes. Pistorius didn't give up, and he fought against the rulings and eventually was allowed to compete in ALL international competitions that he qualified for. This summer he is competing in the Olympics, not the Paralympics, but the Olympics for able-bodied athletes as a part of the South African 4x400m relay team.
This is inspiring to me because Pistorius had all the right to give up, quit, and find something else to do. No one made it easier for him and still he pushed through until he succeeded. Now that my competitive running is over I can still take from Oscar's story ispiration that in whatever I do i have no right to give up.

-His first race with able bodied athletes was at the world championships in this clip

11 comments:

  1. Sounds interesting. It's nice how someone can fight and do something that they love to do!

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  2. Nice post. Thats a strong influence with someone like that overcoming it all.

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  3. That's amazing that he can run with no legs. Nice post.

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  4. Very cool story! Such an inspiration!

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  5. This post in incredible. Somebody who is willing to fight that hard instead of give up deserves to be treated just the same and given the same chances as other athletes.

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  6. Its when you come across people like these you truly see how lucky you are.

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  7. Very inspirational. Seeing him gives the motivation to keep things going, despite the outside forces pushing against you.

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  8. It's amazing that he can run this well without any legs. If something like this happened to me, I would never be able to accomplish something this great.

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  9. I didn't know having no legs was an "unfair advantage". Inspirational, keep it up.

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