Sombeech
Joined: 09 Dec 2004
Posts: 11255
Location: The Rubbish Bin
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:06 pm Post subject: 1 legged man to race 100 miles |
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http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070809/NEWS/70809018
BRECKENRIDGE — Before Ibrahim Wafula entered the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race, before he rode 80 miles in less than seven hours throughout Summit County this week to train, even before he had a prosthetic right leg to help him stand up, he followed his devout Islamic faith and boarded a plane from his native Nairobi, Kenya, to San Diego last November.
He carried little with him on his journey: a suitcase full of clothes, his trusty metal crutch, the dark suit he wore to the Nairobi airport, an envelope filled with Kenyan newspaper clippings to prove who he was ... and, of course, one cycling shoe and one pedal.
He had not been registered in the race — in fact, the event was already full — there was no one scheduled to meet him at the airport, he hadn’t arranged for a place to stay once he arrived, and he carried virtually no money.
He was not worried.
Two days prior, he’d secured a travel visa through the U.S. Embassy in Kenya at the last minute, an unheard-of timeframe for dignitaries, never mind a poor, one-legged agricultural worker who lives in a one-room apartment with his wife and two children.
Unbeknownst to Wafula, help, a.k.a. Eric Channing Brewer, was en route to San Diego about four hours ahead of him.
Brewer had learned of the dire circumstances that awaited Wafula’s arrival in California, so he flew from his home in Washington, D.C., to San Diego immediately. His mission: help his friend fulfill his.
Wafula raced in the triathlon, impressing many, as usual. It was his first race in the United States and that thrill alone might have been enough to deem the experience a success. But something else happened while he was there, something miraculous, just like so much of Wafula’s story seems to be.
During the 52-mile bike section, a fellow cyclist noticed Wafula riding with one leg and no prosthesis. The man turned out to be Elliot Weintrob, one of the nation’s leading prostheticians and, it turns out, possessor of a large heart.
Weintrob approached Wafula and Brewer after the race and learned of Wafula’s story: How he lost part of his right leg in a car accident when he was 7, how he’d taught himself to ride a bike and play soccer and run, how he had gotten so fast in the saddle that he is now a legitimate threat to able-bodied racers — how he has magnificent dreams, but no money.
Weintrob made the two men an offer. If they got Wafula to D.C., he would make sure Wafula got a new, $25,000 prosthetic leg, free of charge — a prospect Brewer called “music to my ears.”
Three months later, Wafula had another large chunk of his right leg amputated to accomodate the prosthesis, and this Saturday, he will test the device in competition for the first time, in one of the most famous mountain bike races in the nation. |
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