A True Champion: Wheelchair athlete Kurt Fearnley to tackle Kokoda

AS if claiming a sixth marathon victory for 2009 isn’t enough, wheelchair racing champion Kurt Fearnley is facing the toughest challenge of his life when he attempts the Kokoda track next week.

The 28-year-old from Newcastle today won a record fourth successive New York marathon, triumphing in a desperate photo finish from South African veteran Krige Schabort.

It means two-time Paralympic champion Fearnley will finish the year unbeaten in marathons, with wins in Seoul, Paris, London, Sydney, Chicago and New York.

But he has little time to celebrate as he flies back to Australia and then on to Papua New Guinea to start a 12-day trek of the iconic 96km track.

Fearnley, who was born without a complete spinal cord, will leave his wheelchair and crawl the track to raise awareness of men’s health issues and in support of the charity initiative Movember.

“I think Kokoda will be the toughest single experience I’ve ever had in my life and I know that,” Fearnley said. “But I’m also excited about it.”

Although no stranger to the pain of pushing his body to the limit, Fearnley also admitted he was fearful of the challenge. “I’m a little bit worried, which is human I think when you’re doing something like this,” he said.

UNABLE to use his legs since birth, Paralympic champion Kurt Fearnley says he’s willing to risk his sporting career – even losing his arms – in a quest to crawl the Kokoda Trail.

If that sounds over-dramatic, consider that two Australians died within a week of each other while walking the trail in April. Walking.

Fearnley, born without the lower section of his spine, must take on Kokoda with his hands. He will crawl the narrow 96km route through Papua New Guinea’s mountain terrain for 12 days, up to 11 hours a day.

He will be tested by everything from disease-carrying mosquitoes to mud that infects by seeping into cuts and blisters. He will climb through a steamy jungle where temperatures will soar into the high 30s and humidity will exceed 90 per cent, reaching a peak of 2195m.

After losing a male family member to depression, he said the trip was about “blokes supporting other blokes and asking for help when they need it”.

He has given himself 12 days to complete the track.

“I’ll require help, of course,” Fearnley said. “There’s no way I’d even contemplate doing this if I didn’t have the right people around me.”

Fearnley, who grew up in the small town of Carcoar, NSW, west of Bathurst, said he had to back up so quickly from New York because of the PNG wet season.

This guy is a true Champion in my books! Well done Kurt. I’m going to be following your story closely, and I look forward to hearing it. You are incredible.

Source: news.com.au

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

If they don’t have the guts, I call them girlie men.

 

Image via Wikipedia

 

“Girlie men” is a pejorative term, notably used by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to characterize opponents in the state legislature of California over the state budget.  Schwarzenegger borrowed the term from a series of Saturday Night Live sketches in which Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon played bodybuilders named Hans and Franz, large men with Austrian accents. The two characters, for obvious comic reasons, were characterized as cousins of Schwarzenegger’s. The inverted usage provides an element of irony to the comedy and the term, as well.

The term was first used by Schwarzenegger in the 1988 Presidential election, accompanied by then Vice President George H.W. Bush. He was shown attacking Bush’s opponents, saying “They all look like a bunch of girlie men, right?” He repeated it in the 1992 election, then campaigning for President Bush, again applying it to the Democratic candidates, as seen in the documentary Feed (1992) by Kevin Rafferty and James Ridgeway. He used the phrase again on July 17, 2004, where he stated “[i]f they don’t have the guts to come up here in front of you and say, ‘I don’t want to represent you, I want to represent those special interests, the unions, the trial lawyers …’ if they don’t have the guts, I call them girlie men.”

Source – wikipedia

TIGER WOODS

Image by Chase McAlpine via Flickr

My dad has always taught me these words: CARE and SHARE.  That’s why we put on clinics.  The only thing I can do is try to give back.  If it works, it works.

Practise

BILLIE JEAN KING

Champions keep playing until they get it right.

Image by Getty Images

LEARNING

STIRLING MOSS [Raced from 1948 to 1962, won 194 of the 497 races entered, including 16 F1 Grands Prix]

The best classroom of all times was about two car lengths behind Juan Manuel Fangio.

In the Zone

COLIN EDWARDS

The guy has stopped impressing me a long time ago because he just seems to do it all the time. But what is it? I don’t know what it is. You could say he’s getting in the zone, but I think he’s maybe permanently stuck there.” – June 2008, about the brilliance of six-time MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi

Image by wordman1 via Flickr

Dreams

MUHAMMAD ALI - American Boxer

Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them — a desire, a dream, a vision.

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MUHAMMAD ALI - American Boxer

Quitting

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
Lance Armstrong

Limits

You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.
– Arthur Ashe

Intensity

There is no room in your mind for negative thoughts. The busier you keep yourself with the particulars of shot assessment and execution, the less chance your mind has to dwell on the emotional. This is sheer intensity.
– Jack Nicklaus