SpecialStories

Original Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
By Tanya Mannes
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Nov 3, 2008
SAN DIEGO – The first time Patrick Ivison, 14, went surfing, he said, “It felt like flying.”
The blond teenager with the cracking voice and braces has been in a wheelchair most of his life because of a childhood spinal injury. But Patrick’s disability hasn’t [...]

This story isn’t about an athlete with disabilities (although an injury might be considered a temporary disability) but it is definitely inspiring.
Original story
By Joseph B. Frazier
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORTLAND, Ore. – With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never [...]

Original source: The Gazette
Six young adults with Down Syndrome will travel to Peru, live in a village and climb to Machu Picchu. The trip is intended to show that people with the condition can contribute to a community
IRWIN BLOCK, The Gazette
At the end of May, six young adults will be flying to Peru to live [...]

Original Source: Brudirect.com News
Bandar Seri Begawan -– Three of the country’s special athletes who have intellectual disabilities are physically and mentally ready to take up the challenge in participating in the 3rd Special Olympics at Mount Kinabalu Climbathon in Sabah, Malaysia.
These special athletes, two students from the Bengkurong Pusat Ehsan and the other from the [...]

Original Source: the Onion
WASHINGTON, DC-– Three months after the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, the International Special Olympics Committee has begun to investigate charges that athletes used performance-enhancing hugs in their training and directly before competing in key events.
“These people have no shame,” ISOC chairman Bill Evans said Monday. “Right before a [...]

Original Source: TheStar.com (Toronto Star; you must register to read)
Author: George Gamester
`I realized you have two choices: Lie down and let life pass you by. Or stand up and participate’
Life threw Harry Titus a few punches, including blindness, so he fought back. And he won
Story
Listen, there’s this Karate Kid we want you to meet.
Sure, [...]

Original Source: Centre Daily Times
By Chris Rosenblum
crosenbl@centredaily.com
PATTON TOWNSHIP -– Behind Kyle Heichel’s 11-year-old eyes lies a month-old infant.
He is helpless, speechless, paralyzed from the neck down since birth by either a stroke in utero or his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.
Christine Heichel isn’t sure which led to her son’s cerebral atrophy, daily seizures and [...]

Original Source: DailyIndia.com
Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Oct.22 (ANI): Eight-year-old Eera Parihar’s mental disability might have restricted her to compete with other children of her age, but that did not come in her way to achieve a swimming record.
Eera has done her parents proud by swimming one kilometre in a 40-kilometre lake, considered the biggest lake in [...]

Original Source: National Post
David Cass is much more to the Argos than an equipment assistant — ‘You could be having a bad day … and he just perks you right back up’
By Sean Fitz-Gerald,
National Post
OAKVILLE - Just about everyone has a favourite snapshot of Dave the Wave, a memory that can be pulled out at [...]

Original Source: The Connecticut Post
By BRIAN A. POUNDS bpounds@ctpost.com
Little Charlie Beri edges her toes to the lip of the pool, bending her knees tentatively and raising her arms in preparation to jump.
Waiting in the pool for the 3-year-old is Lisa Ellis, an instructor in the Fairfield YMCA’s preschool swim classes for the last six years.
Ellis, [...]