Each night for the past week my daughter has stayed up for the first 45 - 60 minutes of the prime time Olympic broadcast. She doesn't get to see everything, but has been pleased with what she's seen thus far. Her favorite event was the women's rowing event with the U.S. taking the gold. On Saturday night she had the opportunity to witness Oscar Pistorius run the 400 m in track and field. If you're not familiar with this athlete, he has a unique disability for an Olympian. He's a double amputee with no legs. He runs on what are called "cheetah" legs.
While NBC was doing their story on Oscar I talked with my daughter about this. Naturally, she had a lot of questions that I wasn't able to answer. Why did he lose his legs? Where did his legs go? How does he walk? How does he run? Does he wear the legs to bed? She was very confused as to why the "cheetah" legs were called cheetah legs. She promptly informed me that cheetahs have furry paws and his legs are not fury and they don't have paws. :-) Even though I wasn't able to answer all of her questions, this was an excellent opportunity to show her that even if things go bad in life, you can still achieve success through hard work. To see an Olympic athlete accomplish what Oscar Pistorius has is amazing.
It was also an excellent opportunity to share with my daughter the power of science. Science was able to take this person from a wheel chair to an Olympic athlete. Science may not be the solution to everything, but it can definitely improve the quality of one's life.
Update: A sad end to the story of Oscar Pistorius as he was convicted in 2015 of murdering his girlfriend in 2013.
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