Tatyana McFadden, one of the vital embellished Paralympic athletes of all time, has all the time been on the verge of constructing Para athletic historical past.
After yesterday’s silver-medal efficiency within the 100-meter sprint within the T-34 class, she’s taking part on this afternoon’s 800-meter race, in addition to Sunday’s marathon.
McFadden has gained a complete of 21 Paralympic medals up to now — 20 in observe in the summertime Paralympics, and one in cross-country snowboarding on the winter Paralympics. Yup, she’s quick within the snow in addition to on the observe.
The factor about McFadden is that she isn’t only a one who goes out on a observe (or within the snow) and is quicker than nearly all people else. She’s an activist for the disabled, one who pushed that Maryland Public Excessive Faculties Athletic Affiliation to require that colleges give college students with disabilities the chance to compete in interscholastic athletics.
It was the premise of a nationwide legislation handed in 2013. And despite the fact that you don’t see lots of varsity para athletes in lots of athletic endeavors, you might be seeing extra of an acceptance of differently-abled individuals in excessive colleges, whether or not it’s subject hockey gamers with Down Syndrome, swimmers who had been born with out a limb, or basketball gamers with autism.
And that’s a common lesson, one which was espoused by the founding father of the fashionable Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin:
The necessary factor within the Olympic Video games is to not win, however to participate; the necessary factor in life isn’t the triumph, however the wrestle; the important factor is to not have conquered however to have fought properly. To unfold these rules is to construct up a robust and extra valiant and, above all, extra scrupulous and extra beneficiant humanity.