tv [untitled] December 22, 2012 8:30pm-9:00pm EST
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to spare he went swimming played the guitar took the wheelchair dancing lessons and lifted weights he traveled a lot taking part in numerous performances in competition. is cuba because you want. to. play the most father was his personal driver and bodyguard after leaving his job he just had a schedule to his son's timetable however he's never made concessions to his son's condition. you won't be able to get through we will. i want to show the apartment to my son we're definitely going out. of the war well but if you want to achieve something you have to go all the way there's nothing you can do in this life the move to bust a move this will. still be under floor heating here usually a little bit of door into the kitchen. where you can move the balls any way we like
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. we need to redesign. most russian cities especially the olympic host city of sochi are in need of disabled access for the twenty fourteen winter olympic and paralympic games. more than thirty years ago before the nine hundred eighty summer olympic games in moscow so he was dorothy's refused to host the paralympics. the organizing committee explained that the country was not ready for such an event. or it's. just the really big. stage slopes earlier fleets. that you don't have the right skills you would ever be able to get to the top. is going to give me the push.
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i. was born in sochi and has lived there all his life thirteen years ago the successful entrepreneur was injured while he was inspecting a construction site. debris from a building collapsed on him damaging his spine. because of the lack of an elevator inns apartment block it was effectively trapped in his fourth floor apartment for eighteen months. before that i didn't know anything about disabled. and i was totally unaware of how they lived and this is that when i became disabled myself i realized how difficult it was almost no wheelchair. and i felt that some make the world a better place i wanted to make it accessible for everyone. in only a few years because become a famous athlete and public figure when his hometown was awarded the winter
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olympics was consulted on how to make the city accessible to the disabled. come on come on let me come on you can do it. in my early teens i did not understand people i was afraid of something and ashamed of my situation of the fact i was in a wheelchair people felt sorry for me then saying oh what a poor boy got on my nerves so i didn't feel that way i had a hard time going outside but when i began doing sports my life changed completely our society has also changed.
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it's going to be my began just down the bar at the same time. the slow dance and the music but i dance less as i was often busy lifting weights with dancing the result depends on both partners my partner and i had an ideal relationship because a couple should be one whole. business i've always liked sports where you are responsible for yourself like with waves of stone if you fail to lift something it's your fault demon didn't fall in love with weightlifting at first sight the real excitement only came after a few victories at several championships. bad at the paralympic games in london he was among the contenders for the gold medal. to get it he only did just one more attempt and one more to.
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say yes most of them i know that he could do even better he just needs a little more time and he has this time and he's only twenty now and these were his first paralympic games you made himself known after taking third place it's very good so was i like to tell him your day will come to regret it but i think it would have mattered. one marias hard a month before the olympics but he was a training camp when he saw maria at a cafe he made the first move. i saw him push all the chairs out of his way to get to where i was sitting at his first question was why are you looking at me and smiling i stared at him as i did not know what to say it was so in most memorable even though he's only twenty he's much more mature than other guys is far above his. age in terms of intelligence and
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communication to him but i see him on the news they rush to the t.v. and stand still in front of the screen i know it's my for dinner now they see each other once a month at most studying to become a teacher and lives a thousand miles away from his home town as soon as she graduates chill moved to live with the mic so they'll be no more distance between them. over here guys that's why we're going. on a st paul court is half the size of a regular basketball court with half the number of players to just one good catch can change the course of the game. these athletes play by the same rules in everyday life come on we're moving when we have a crucial. alex to call michael was the first to organize a russian sports and arts festival in sochi for the disabled he wanted to show that there are no limits and that any of them could participate in the games despite his
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age wants to join the national curling team and take part in the twenty four team paralympics most of those when do we meet each other some seventy years ago we met at the first combine games you were very young there are remember how tenacious you work your way even competed against each other. i likes to call nick of met his love on a dating website a year ago lisa came to sochi and now she helps them organize championships for people with disabilities. we knew each other for just a couple of weeks but it felt like we had known each other for a very long time that there really was good fortune that brought us together. which was the two of us are very much alike all of us have that standard the way we like to live. with it and we really don't bother each other it's all in the details.
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and you know if you're boring. we saw you soon just because it was when you were a freakish i never had the feeling that we had just met and that i just came here when my friends asked me if i'd got used to my new life i say that i didn't have to get used to anything was. i simply found my place in my cellmate. when it finally dawned on me that this woman was mine that's when i proposed to. you stephen and that's why we decided that will be really wanted to see a lawyer to and for god wills and.
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before he turned seventeen you know it was no different to most boys he loved me and was keen on technology his national park cars prompting parents to give him a motorcycle as the president of a road accident which to miraculously survived changed his life forever after both his legs were amputated it took him two years to start his life anew. because you have to carry on living despite the circumstances the most and of course you may vegetated home all the time but i'd rather set a goal and reach out for it. so what if i am disabled a big deal but i'm proud of who i am. ten years after the accident people became a four time champion i think over paralympics he won four golds in oneself.
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when he realized he had no legs he started smashing all the equipment in the room he was hysterical the next day came to visit him he looked at me with tears flowed down his face and he said you will now abandon me well. that was the first thing he said. when we began fighting for the life i wanted to show him that we needed him so i told him you have your hands and your legs are not that. good. at first eric's parents were afraid to leave me at home alone and he was too shy to go outside he put on thirty five kilos. it took me two years to rethink my life
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but i had to learn how to eat by myself to go to the bathroom at seventeen i was just like a little baby all over again when you were you know it was very hard to carry on every day i had to improve but then little by little i learned to help my parents skip dinner meet them in the evening and so forth. when pro ball girls say he started doing his exercises he developed a diet of cottage cheese and saw in his dishes what was no fat allowed sometimes i found sewing for him and added a little but that he could tell it was there and refused to eat it do you weightlifting swimming table tennis air played every possible sport but speed was still is greatest passion after one year of training he became the champion of russia in wheelchair racing that very winter he began to ski for the first time. i love the atmosphere i have been staying at home all the time but then i came out and saw the people in the world when i began to win them attract attention it was
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addictive he trained every day even in the little time he had at home he barely had time to see if family. alone. i've missed so much. let's play. just look i'm just me it's very hard to stay without him especially when i see how the kids miss their deadline you know our daughter misses him the most recent chaney's her dad our son misses to him too but i hope he often tells him that he should stop training so much and come home. when his future wife dilemma both for the car accident they were in the same group of friends as teenagers but they started going out after
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a year ago turned from his first paralympics. i was trying to convince him not to do it by told her there were many healthy men and that he would find his soulmate and wrong that team members but she said she loved him i told her that if she hurt him she would have to deal with me. but she vowed that he was serious. charged me with his because a tiff energy and i wanted to talk. i got somewhat addicted to it he's the kind of person who gets things done is never complained about about being disabled never said life is over for him he simply lives and enjoys just like. their son i knew or was born two years before his triumph at the vancouver paralympics. their daughter
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was born after his victory we got yeah she's now two her brothers four unfortunately their father has not been there for any of their birthday parties. and one two three. zero. butterfingers. into the deep end with you. it's hard for eric every time he asked to leave home but he understands that will be more difficult to defend his title at the two thousand and fourteen olympics. than it was to win it for the first time. so how did i do. you a fifth before you must come second to the semifinals were in the final. this week you will be voting for medals grit your teeth. every year more young and strong contenders take part working out pushes the limit of human potential and can affect
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the health. you know my shoulders are sore. this year the right one has started leaking at the joint. it's been bothering me all season. recently eric has become interested not only in sports but also in political races a year ago he was elected deputy in the city council of his hometown you can't do sports forever but life goes on my sporting career will eventually end so i have to find something else. so i reached my peak in sports what i've achieved everything i could i got to the very top i've become the world champion i won world cups and international competitions i no longer have a passion or desire now i think about my family and children. yes so are we going to the kid center all right let's go after the kindergarten institutions for disabled children frequently invite people. he knows how much money and effort is
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needed to make these kids normal members of society. hello maria. maria your vote was raised in an orphanage. hello maria little snow maiden her mother abandoned maria when doctors told her that her child was unlikely to survive and if she did she wouldn't be able to walk talk or hear normally and her mental development would be severely impaired. at the age of twenty marie over became a champion at the winter paralympic games in vancouver winning two golds and won silver in biathlon and cross-country skiing. why did they give you. do you know why first place because you were the first. when she took part in russian
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championships she was always very upset if she was not awarded a medal she cried really hard do you want a new model very much she does. became maria's teacher one of the just seven girls transferred from an orphanage to a special boarding school. and has been by maria's side since her first steps into sports taking her to all the training camps and competitions the teacher became a mother to the girl even though she was only twenty then. you know beautiful am i to you. i don't know why do you think. oh we're friends but we're really good friends. maria was lucky she was selected for the republic of commies national team maria has always stood out from the crowd she was a very active and sociable child but when serious training sessions began doctors
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strongly recommended that she should not get involved in professional sports she was born with no joints in her legs which leads to poor blood circulation so she could suffer serious health issues. ok i examined her almost every day i took her temperature and if there was any increase be immediately carried out medical tests for the first million years we were training for results our goal was just to make a solid foundation we wanted her to become strong. one year before then cobra paralympics the coach just started to increase training they worked out six days a week for eight hours at a time alexander worked with maria on the ski track work with her on shooting skills she was with the young athlete twenty four hours a day when she looked very bad i'm sorry let's go in skiing come on come on. after maria of us triumph at the olympics the story of the champion who was raised
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in an orphanage became known in practically every russian household. welcome russia's blight and joy may really be a lympics champion. when maria came back from canada there was a surprise waiting for her at home. her biological mother wanted to see her. there's maria. in the court told journalists that she was the one who abandoned maria twenty years ago. with something it's my fault i was young and skews been in i don't know the mother and daughter had an on camera meeting. it's. firing these look at me. these don't shake your head. you simply
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can't understand a person with bandits who child immediately after birth and then eighteen years later turns up when he child has practically become a world star achieved everything she wanted on her real identity then she appeared outrageous. so the girls grew up without she's never seen her. even though she's a biological mother i think it's inappropriate to act this way if the rear was around ten years old maybe then she might have responded differently. after the olympics maria moved from the boarding school to an apartment of her own even though she cannot take care of herself that's why her closest friend is always with her. career has to win many more competitions for her right participate in the twenty fourteen winter olympics. for the time being does not want to talk or meet
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with her biological mother. don't discuss this look what do you love. do you love. news no i don't know how you know you're asking me. in everyday life she may say she loves me even if i don't ask her about it she says i love you and goes away the weirdos all these things herself at home we learn to embroider hanes go learn different things. play. them toys learn and. remember. murray overvote was born after the collapse of the soviet union in a new country more open to developing opportunities. but some challenges still remain. bumpy would have to be twice as strong as other people it's hard for the disabled in russia we move forward little by little showing what we
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are capable of it's good they've noticed our sporting achievements it all started when we want to turin goober they realised that disabled people are reality. now an era of three but is preparing for his third paralympic games he wants the winter olympics in sochi to crown the end of his sporting career and signal the start of a new life. when you come back daddy. good bye darlings. you will have to prove many times that people with disabilities actually have unlimited abilities. they can build careers like everyone else have happy
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