Post by caspday on Sept 10, 2012 21:57:12 GMT -5
At long last, Josie Pearson zyhaa911 has her gold medal. Pearson Authentic Eagles Jerseyswon it in the F51/52/53 discus, the sixth event she has competed at in her career, and the first in which she has been so successful. In her time Pearson, 26, has been a showjumper, dressage rider, a wheelchair rugby player, a wheelchair racer, and a club thrower. "I think," she said with a touch of relief, "I have found my niche." Pearson broke the world record in the F51 class with each of her first three throws, of 6.38m, 6.54m and, finally, 6.58m.
That was good enough to winCustom Eagles Jerseys her the gold by the huge margin of 242 points, ahead of Ireland's Catherine O'Neill. "This," Pearson said, "has been the most amazing experience of my life."Only nine years ago, Pearson broke her back in a car crash when she was driving back home to Hay-on-Wye after a bank holiday spent tenpin bowling in Newport. Her boyfriend, Daniel Evans, died in the accident. After the collision, Pearson was able to move only her arms. Paralympic stories come in all forms.
Pearson's is a testament Michael Vick Jerseysto the role sport can play in rehabilitation. She resolved to finish her A-levels, and carry on with her life. "You are either someone who copes or doesn't," she has said. "And we all did."Pearson had been an excellent horse rider as a teenager, and for a time she tried to carry on with it. She competed in a dressage event but she just did not have the mobility she needed to be as good as she had been. The contrast between the before and after was simply too stark.
Not long after she met Alan Ash, a Desean Jackson Jerseysfellow patient at the Oswestry Spinal Unit. Ash was a wheelchair rugby player and he persuaded her to have a go. Soon she was playing for the South Wales Pirates. It is a mixed sport but she was the only woman on the pitch. She would have to get used to it. In November 2006, she attended national trials and was selected, along with Ash, for the Great Britain squad. She was the only woman on the team at the Beijing Games too, the first, in fact, to compete for the country.
The Great Britain team finished fourth in Nnamdi Asomugha Jerseysthose Games, so Pearson decided to turn to athletics. She says it took her a year to pluck up the courage to switch but when she did, she was a natural. She was selected in four events for the world championships in New Zealand and said that she expected to win medals in all of them. In the end she was disqualified in the 200m and 400m, and finished fifth in the 100m and 800m. Worse still, it turned out that the heavy training regime was doing serious damage to her neck.