For athletes in the state of Texas, there is nothing more exhilarating than pushing yourself to do something better, faster or stronger. Constantly testing your limits and always improving on your skills are key to any athletes’ success and as some would say, there is no better way of testing this than by participating in an athletic competition.
But for some athletes, simple challenges such as running a triathlon aren’t enough. They want the true test of their fitness level and look no further than what is considered to be one of the toughest challenges in the world: the Crossfit Games.
Designed to test an athlete’s fitness, the games consist of a series of exercises that test not only a person’s strength but their endurance as well. But while the competition focuses on using your entire body to outperform your competition, one Australian athlete has entered the competition to prove this conception wrong.
The 28-year-old man was born without his right leg below his knee, and although some would allow this disability to exclude them from entering such competitions, this man wants to prove that anyone can achieve success if they only try for it.
The 28-year-old is no stranger to athletic competitions, having won five Australian Wheelchair Basketball Championships and competed in several other events around the world. So after a little encouragement from his friends, he decided to take it to the next level and pit himself against some of the top athletes in the world.
The games are a three-stage journey, and after completing the first round, he is ranked 4311 out of 75,000 participants. Looking forward to the flexibility and endurance challenges later on in the competition which play more to his strengths, he says his focus now will be on not letting his missing leg present another challenge for him and improving his results as he moves forward in the competition.
Source: inmycommunity.com, “Amputee takes on world’s top athletes,” March 19, 2012