曾在奥运会和残奥会上获得金牌的赫德里克
(2012-08-10 12:56:40)
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分类: 美国人物 |
沙伦•赫德里克在1984年洛杉矶奥运会上获得女子800米田径比赛金牌。4年后她在汉城(现为首尔)奥运会上再度夺金。
2012.08.09
美国国务院国际信息局(IIP)《美国参考》从华盛顿报道,1984年,28岁的沙伦·赫德里克(Sharon Hedrick)获得了作为美国队队员参加残奥会的机会,但她婉言谢绝了。她要准备去参加奥运会。
赫德里克后来成为美国第一个获得奥运金牌的轮椅运动员。
她说:“你知道吗?那是一次极好的机会,可以向公众展示轮椅体育,而且可以表明,只要我们努力就能体现我们的能力。我由衷地认为,我当时是展示这一点的最佳代表,最佳女性。”
赫德里克毕业于伊利诺伊大学,是美国第一位获得奥运金牌的轮椅运动员,迄今仍是唯一一位在奥运会和残奥会上均获得过金牌的美国选手。
9岁那年,她因脊椎骨意外受伤而失去双腿功能。10年之后,她才发现轮椅体育。
当时有一位职业理疗师在当地的一次民间活动中看到赫德里克在训练她的爱犬,便鼓励她参加一个运动队,这支运动队在费城天普大学进行训练。她参加了一次练习赛,就体现出了天赋潜能。
赫德里克回忆说:“我超过了所有人,他们看着我好像在说,‘你知道吗?你的确非常快。’”
赫德里克后来在1984年洛杉矶夏季奥运会上获得女子800米轮椅比赛金牌。800米轮椅比赛在那一年被列入奥运会作为表演项目。她取得了2分15秒73的成绩,从而创下新的世界纪录,将之前的世界纪录提高了3秒。
她后来在1988年汉城奥运会上再次夺金,将自己创造的世界纪录又提高了3秒。她还作为一名残奥选手为美国夺金,参加了美国女子轮椅篮球队的比赛。赫德里克和她的队友们战胜了在国际比赛中曾经12年常胜不败的西德队。
赫德里克的伊利诺伊大学校友斯科特·霍伦贝克(Scot Hollonbeck)和琼·德里斯科尔(Jean Driscoll)等其他著名的轮椅运动员都以赫德里克1984年在800米田径赛中获胜为榜样。
霍伦贝克也参加过奥运会和残奥会的比赛。在看到赫德里克在奥运夺金后,他便决定从事轮椅运动。他当时在医院的病床上观看了那场比赛,几天前他在骑自行车时不幸被一个醉酒司机撞倒。
德里斯科尔曾八次获得波士顿马拉松比赛轮椅组的冠军,12次获得残奥会奖牌。她认为,赫德里克并未因其成就而获得应有的承认。她说,赫德里克受到的冷落与男子轮椅田径选手乔治·默里(George Murray)的鼎鼎大名形成了对比。
德里斯科尔2006年在接受“妇女新闻” (womensenews.org) 的采访时指出,“我丝毫不想抹杀他的成就。他当时是明星式的运动员,理应得到国内外的承认。但沙伦也是如此。”
在参加比赛的体育生涯期间以及退役之后,赫德里克还担任过轮椅运动的教练,并且是一位励志演讲家。她在伊利诺伊大学学的是营养学,后来与其他轮椅运动员合作研发了健康饮食方式以及体育技巧。
赫德里克还曾与一些当地及国外的组织合作,如全国轮椅篮球协会美国伤残退役军人组织(Paralyzed Veterans of America),并远道前往日本等国进行体育示范表演。
她说:“那时候非常辛苦而且花了很多时间,不过那是我生活中的快乐时光。的确是这样的。”
赫德里克过去曾怀疑,人们是否会像重视奥运会那样重视残奥会,不过如今她变得乐观了。她说,美国奥委会吸收了美国残奥委会,这本身就说明时代在变化。
赫德里克说:“一方面,在承认我们的体育运动是真正的体育运动方面,我们确实看到了巨大的进展,我一直认为确实如此。”然而,这位已退役的运动员也提到,在公众中曝光不够有可能拖住残疾运动员的后腿。她说:“我依然认为就一般公众而言,可能仍有大量的工作有待完成,因为我们不具备同样的知名度。”
赫德里克曾在残奥会上拿到过六块金牌、四块银牌和一块铜牌。除了这些辉煌的成绩之外,她还参加过1978年和1981年的泛美轮椅运动会(Pan American Wheelchair Games)。在长期参加国际比赛的运动生涯结束之后,她于1992年入选美国轮椅体育名人堂,并在1994年成为入选全国轮椅篮球协会名人堂的第一位女性成员。
尽管她的运动生涯已告于段落,赫德里克仍然对一项新挑战充满了热情——那就是做一名母亲。除了从事志愿活动外,她与厮守30多年的丈夫一道把大部分时间都用于养育他们的养子内森(Nathan)。
她笑着说:“人的一生发生这么多改变真是难以置信……孩子们十分需要爱!这完全改变了我的生活。”
Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/chinese/article/2012/08/20120809134458.html#ixzz237GSeeME
Athlete Won Gold in Olympics, Paralympics
By Aaron Lancaster | Staff Writer | 08 August 2012
Sharon Hedrick won gold in the women’s 800-meter race at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. She would defend her title four years later in the Seoul Olympics.
Washington — In 1984, 28-year-old Sharon Hedrick was offered a place on the U.S. Paralympic team, but she turned it down. She would be heading to the Olympics instead.
Hedrick went on to become the first American wheelchair athlete to win an Olympic gold medal.
“I said, ‘You know what? This is just too good of an opportunity to showcase wheelchair sports to the general public and how well and how good we can be when we work,’” Hedrick said, “I believed in my heart and soul that I was the best person, the best woman, to show that.”
Hedrick, a graduate of the University of Illinois, was the first U.S. wheelchair athlete to win an Olympic gold medal and remains the only U.S. athlete to win gold in both the Olympics and the Paralympics.
Hedrick lost use of her legs at age 9, after she was accidentally shot in the spine. It would be 10 years before Hedrick discovered wheelchair athletics.
An occupational therapist who saw Hedrick training her dog at a local fair encouraged her to join an athletic team that practiced at Temple University in Philadelphia. Her latent skill showed when she participated in a practice race.
“I beat all the guys, and they sort of looked at me like, ‘You know what? You are really, really fast,’” Hedrick recalled.
Hedrick went on to take gold in the 800-meter wheelchair race at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. The 800-meter wheelchair race had been added to the Olympic Games as an exhibition event that year. Hedrick crossed the finish line with a world record time of 2:15.73, beating the previous world best by three seconds.
She later defended her title at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, besting her previous world record time by three seconds. Hedrick also earned gold for the U.S. as a Paralympian, competing for her country on the women’s wheelchair basketball team. Hedrick and her teammates beat a West German squad that had not lost in 12 years of international competition.
Other prominent wheelchair athletes have pointed to Hedrick’s 1984 win in the 800-meter race as an inspiration, including fellow University of Illinois graduates Scot Hollonbeck and Jean Driscoll.
Hollonbeck, who also competed at the Olympic and Paralympic level, decided to take up wheelchair athletics after seeing Hedrick win gold at the Olympics. He was watching the race from a hospital bed, just days after a drunk driver hit him while he was riding his bike.
Driscoll, an eight-time winner of the Boston Marathon’s wheelchair division and 12-time Paralympic medalist, believes that Hedrick did not get proper recognition for her accomplishment. She compared Hedrick’s treatment to that of a male wheelchair racer, George Murray.
"I don't want to take anything away from [Murray's] accomplishments,” Driscoll said in a 2006 interview with womensenews.org, “He was a stellar athlete during his time and deserved national and international recognition. It's just that Sharon did too."
During and after her competitive sports career, Hedrick also worked as a wheelchair athletics instructor and motivational speaker. Having studied nutrition at the University of Illinois, she worked with other wheelchair athletes to develop healthy diets and skill techniques.
Hedrick has worked with local organizations, such as the National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s Paralyzed Veterans of America, and abroad, playing exhibition tours as far away as Japan.
“It was exhausting and time-consuming, but it was a joyful period in my life. It really was,” Hedrick said.
Although she was skeptical that people ever would hold the Paralympics in the same esteem as the Olympics, Hedrick is now more optimistic. She points to the U.S. Olympic Committee’s absorption of U.S. Paralympics as a sign that times are changing.
“On one hand, we have really seen a tremendous amount of growth in terms of acceptance of our sport as true athleticism, which I’ve always believed it is,” Hedrick said. However, the retired athlete also mentioned lack of exposure may hold disabled competitors back. “I still think [regarding] the general public, there’s probably still a lot of work to be done, because we don’t have the same kind of visibility.”
In addition to a successful Paralympic career, with six gold medals, four silver and one bronze, Hedrick competed in the 1978 and 1981 Pan American Wheelchair Games. Following a lengthy international career, she was inducted into the Wheelchair Sports USA Hall of Fame in 1992 and became the first female member of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s Hall of Fame in 1994.
Although her sporting career has ended, Hedrick is still passionate about a new challenge: motherhood. Besides volunteering, she devotes much of her time to raising her adopted son, Nathan, with her husband of more than 30 years.
“It’s incredible how much your life changes. … Babies are very needy!” she said with a laugh. “It entirely changed my life.”
Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2012/08/20120805134171.html#ixzz237GVYG8z