Gold for Alex Zanardi

by Simon

I thought this was very inspiring. Former F1 and IndyCar driver, Alex Zanardi won gold in the paralymics last week in the Men's Individual H4 Time Trial. For those who don’t remember, Zanardi lost both legs in a crash at a CART series race in 2001. He finished the 16km race in 12 minutes 11.13 seconds.

Cycling is a new challenge for Zanardi. Two years after the crash that claimed his legs, he returned to racing and he only retired from racing three years ago. Personally, I find this very uplifting. I can’t imagine suffering a devastating injury such as Zanardi then finding the will to get up and get going again. I like to think I would and I hope I would because I just hate to lose, especially to myself. So my hat goes off to Mr. Z. you're a credit to the human race (as are all the paralympians).

I do have say that Zanardi did have a small advantage for the race seeing as it took place at Brands Hatch, where he was once the lap record holder in Formula 3000. :-)