01 April 2006
Paralympic Athlete Aids World's Disabled
Sports for Life initiative provides prosthetics, wheelchairs and hope
Washington -- As if excelling at Stanford Medical School and winning the wheelchair division of the Boston Marathon twice were not enough, Cheri Blauwet decided to help people half the world away. Teaming up with National Football League star Ray Lewis, the 25-year-old paralympian toured three African nations in 2006, distributing wheelchairs, training and hope to the disabled in Angola, Ethiopia and Malawi.
Blauwet is a gold medalist in the Paralympics, elite sporting events for athletes from six different disability groups: amputee, cerebral palsy, visual impairment, spinal-cord injuries, intellectual disability and a group that includes all those who do not fit into one of the other groups. The Paralympic Games are designed to emphasize the participants' athletic achievements rather than their disability. First held in 1960 in Rome with 400 athletes from 23 countries, it has steadily gained in popularity – more than 3,800 athletes from 136 countries competed in Athens in 2004.
The Paralympic Games are held in the same year as the Olympic Games. Since the 1988 summer games in Seoul and the 1992 winter games in Albertville, France, the Paralympics have been held in the same venues as the Olympics, generally a few weeks after the Olympic Games. (See Paralympic Winter Games a Testament to Athletic Determination.)
Blauwet traveled on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation – now the Veterans for America (VAF), whose Sports for Life initiative empowers the disabled by organizing sporting activities that promote their physical and emotional well-being.
A native of Iowa, Blauwet has used a wheelchair since being injured in a farm accident at the age of 15 months. In secondary school, the track coach encouraged her to enter a wheelchair race held at the Iowa state track championships. Blauwet took quickly to the sport, valuing the discipline it required, but also valuing the camaraderie. "I really fit in," she recalls of her teammates. Blauwet chose to attend the University of Arizona, then the only school featuring five sports for the disabled: racing, tennis, basketball, quad rugby and goal ball.
Even as she maintained a perfect grade point average and was named a Rhodes Scholarship finalist, Blauwet continued to excel on the track, capturing silver and bronze medals at the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, Australia, and gold and bronze at the 2004 games in Athens, Greece. Although she competes in races of different lengths, Blauwet's strongest event is for the longest race of all, the 42.2-kilometer marathon; she is a multiple champion of the Boston, New York City and Los Angeles marathons.
Even though physical strength is crucial for the successful wheelchair race competitor, Blauwet says technique and form are even more important. Top female competitors, she told the Washington File, cover the marathon course at an average speed of about 24.14 kilometers per hour and approach 29 kilometers per hour on the shorter courses. Although wheelchair racing remains popular, Blauwet said disabled athletes increasingly are competing in handcycling on special bicycles propelled by a crank positioned near the rider's upper body.
As she continues to collect athletic records, Blauwet pursues her studies at Stanford Medical School in California and plans a career that combines physical medicine and rehabilitation with advocacy work for the disabled.
REPAIRING THE HUMAN DAMAGE OF WAR
The VAF works in 19 countries to aid individuals wounded by war or debilitating diseases like polio or deformities like clubfoot. Its many programs include a network of clinics that build and distribute artificial limbs, braces and wheelchairs, offer gait training, physical therapy and even micro start-up funding for business initiatives.
These clinics, according to VAF Development Director Anita Uyehara, have served nearly 100,000 people in Angola, Ethiopia, Cambodia and Vietnam -- many of them young soldiers or children injured by land mines deployed during armed conflicts there. Even so, Uyehara said, many of these otherwise vigorous young men and women needed an outlet for their physical energy.
Blauwet agreed to devote two weeks to VAF's efforts in Angola and Ethiopia. On her own initiative, Blauwet, with wheelchairs donated by the [San Francisco] Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program, traveled to Malawi to work with disability advocates.
In Africa, she met with government officials, ran clinics to demonstrate wheelchair mobility and maintenance and, in Angola, participated in a community marathon.
Blauwet recalled a 16-year-old Ethiopian boy, Tekele, who proved particularly adept on the basketball court. The next day, Tekele decisively won a 3-kilometer wheelchair race. Blauwet was proud to award Tekele's prize: his own racing wheelchair.
Play, Blauwet said, is an essential element of physical and social development. Those who participate in sport, she wrote in a diary of her work in Africa, "typically have an easier road to the development of a sense of self-confidence, independence, and an appreciation for their basic human rights."
See Paralympic Winter Games a Testament to Athletic Determination and Sports.
