著名演员濮存昕曾经有一段诗意的话来祝福北京残奥会：奥运会给成功点了个逗号，残奥会要给成功画上圆圆的句号。而今天在天坛采集的圣火也即将踏上“点燃梦想，奉献关爱”之旅。不过或许很多人不知道，在已经举行的夏季奥运会上，其实已经有两位残疾奥运选手参加，她们分别是波兰的“乒坛维纳斯”帕迪卡（Natalia Partyka）和南非的“独腿飞鱼”娜塔莉·杜·图伊托（Natalie du Toit），在之前1984年汉城奥运会和2000年悉尼奥运会也都有残疾运动员参加，而奥运史上最伟大的残疾运动员当属体操名将乔治-埃塞尔（George Eyser），在1904年圣路易斯奥运会上，他获得了三枚金牌，两枚银牌和一枚铜牌，也是迄今为止，奥运会上唯一获得奖牌的残疾运动员。以下是博主在NATIONMASTER的百科全书上找到的关于乔治-埃塞尔的资料，特翻译成中文，以供大家了解。（绝对独家）

    乔治·埃塞尔 是一名美国体操运动员，生于1871年，左腿因为被火车碾过而残废，装上了木头腿。参加了1904年在圣路易斯举办的夏季奥运会，并且获得6枚奖牌，其中3块金牌，2块银牌，一块铜牌。

   他也是迄今为止，奥运会历史上唯一的一个装着假腿而获得奥运奖牌的运动员。埃塞尔参加的是男子艺术体操比赛，他在爬绳和双杠比赛中获得金牌，跳马比赛同安东尼·海塔并列第一；在鞍马比赛和四项全能的比赛中他都获得银牌；在单杠比赛获得铜牌。另外他代表所在的俱乐部--肯考迪亚俱乐部，还参加了1908年在德国法兰克福举行的体操锦标赛和1909年在美国辛辛那提举办的体操锦标赛。

    George Eyser is an American gymnast who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics Games. Throughout his career he has earned 6 medals, including 3 gold and 2 silver. Gymnastics has been contested at every Summer Olympic Games since the birth of the modern Olympic movement at the 1896 Summer Olympics. ...

Eyser was the only Olympic medal winner who had a wooden leg . There's apparently no record of when or how he lost the leg, or even of which leg it was.
Confusion even surrounds the 1904 Olympics in which he competed. The Olympics were held in St. Louis that year, and not many foreign athletes took part. The U. S. was the only country represented in a number of sports, including gymnastics.
  The AAU national gymnastics championships were held as part of the Olympics and winners were considered Olympic champions. It's uncertain, however, which events were actually considered Olympic events. In the AAU competition, Eyser won the parallel bars and rope climb; tied for first with Anton Heida in the vault; finished second in the pommel horse and all-around; and placed third in the horizontal bar. His club, the Concordia Turnverein, won the team championship, bringing Eyser his third gold medal and seventh medal overall.
Eyser also competed for Concordia when the club won a 1908 international meet in Frankfurt, Germany, and a 1909 national meet in Cincinnati.