¨There is no such thing as a handicap¨

Heba Said , one of Egypt´s Paralympics gold medalists, and a Zagazig native is being profiled by Michael Slackman and Mona al Naggar in today´s New York Times. At the time i wrote about the early medalists in the Paralympics in Beijing,medals continued to come like magnets all through the games , and the final toll was 12 medals, four golds, four silver and four bronze medals, making Egypt the 29th in the overall standings of the games.

They returned to a heroes welcome, or so it would seem when recievied by the first Lady and Gamal Mubarak. In the long run, maybe their success will have an impact, but there are still very much to wish for, in terms of people´s attitudes, heroine or no heroine, she still has to live her daily life fighting ignorance and prejudice.

HEBA SAID AHMED pulled her car up to the curb. “No parking here,” a police officer shouted. “But it’s a handicap car,” she said softly, motioning to her wheelchair in the back seat. The officer insisted that she park down the block.

A few minutes later, she had made it from her car, hauled herself on crutches down a flight of steps into a largely empty park when a man tried to stop her. “Members only today,” he said, not even asking if she was a member. She was not, but, exasperated, she said, “I am Heba Said, champion for Egypt.”

The man had no idea what she was talking about, and kept telling her to leave.

She was not raised within the family as any other child, so the first reality check, came in school, were she was told by her teacher that if she couldn´t stand up, this was no place for her. She was placed in a class room on the fifth floor for the first four years, when her father first pleaded with the headmaster to let her be in a first floor classroom, when pleading to common sense ended in vain, he used to carry her to class every day.

and still she says:

“I think there has to be a bit of struggle in your life,” she said. “It strengthens you. It builds character.”

She was always encouraged to do well in school and graduated from Zagazig University with a degree in psychology, it was in her teens that she began with sports and soon the medals started coming, and they´ve never stopped since.

She´s most likely to end her sporting career, while she´s on top, being a double paralympics gold medalists and search for other challenges in life, like having a family, and bring her children up to become champions.

What really lingers on in my mind in reading about Heba is this simple sentence, that tells more about us and the restraints, limits and prejudice that exists, Heba is way ahead of us, and she´s a true role model for all of us.

“THERE is no such thing as a handicap,” she said. “A handicap is in your thinking, or in your heart.”

Egypt Rocks & Rules at Paralympics Powerlifting

Medals seems to be like magnets to the Egyptian Powerlifting team in the current paralympics in Beijing. Egypt just collected it´s second gold in the men´s 56 Kg category by Sherif Osman, who broke the world record three times along the way to the Podium, settling for an end result of 202.5 Kg. This was an early birthday gift, Sherif´s 26th birthday is on Monday. You can find more photos on a jubilant gold medalist here.

This was the second gold after Fatma Omar´s gold yesterday,her third consecutive paralympics GOLD, after having won in Sydney in 2000 and in Athens four years later.

I´m not going to say in which category she won, because as a gentlemen i´ve been taught not to ask a women´s weight, but i´m thrilled for her, it´s extra special when a women wins, because it signals that we as a nation should take women sports seriously and it creates role models for girls who sees that it´s possible to sport and win medals.

i´m actually very pleased to hear about another female participant in the powerlifting still waiting for her hour of glory(tomorrow hopefully), Rania Alaa Eldin Morshedi has a five-year old son , but still continues to compete on international level. This is something unusual for women in sports in Egypt, they usualy drop their career as soon as they graduated and got married, in my view they give up their career before having reached their peak, and in fact some times not being able to collect the fruit of their hard labour for years and years.

In total this was the fifth medal in powerlifting, two golds, one silver and two bronze! We also won a bronze medal in the Men's Javelin Throw, you can see who the rest of the medalists are here.

I´m quite sure this means that neither President Mubarak, nor the Muslim Brotherhood will call for an investigation as to the bad results this time around, though one should learn from success, just as much as take leasons from the mistakes.

1000 Mabrouk to all the medalists and the whole Egyptian team at the Paralympics!