From
Paralympics to Olympics for legally blind runner
Rob Gloster (AP)
27 September 2000 - Marla Runyan is roaming around the cafeteria in the Olympic athletes' village with a plastic tray and silverware, hunting for broccoli. She finds a veggie that looks right, only to discover she's filled her plate with spinach.
Such everyday chores are difficult for Runyan, who is legally blind. Operating her cellphone in Sydney is a major undertaking, as is reading her watch.
But running is not tough at all. In fact, she does it so naturally - and so well - that she was in the field when the first round of the women's 1,500 meters was contested Wednesday.
Runyan placed seventh in her first-round heat in 4 minutes, 10.83 seconds and qualified for the semi-finals on Thursday.
Runyan has an incurable retina condition called Stargardt's Disease that has reduced the middle of her eyesight. Though she can use peripheral vision for activities such as running, other competitors appear to her as streaks of color.
Runyan, who won four events at the 1992 Paralympics and is the first U.S. paralympian to make the Olympics, insists her restricted vision is no handicap when she's competing - even though she can't read the lap clock during a race.
"Running on the track is one of the things I can do well. I just don't see it as being a barrier. I have a sense of strength on the track that in other areas of my life I don't have,'' says Runyan, who can't decipher opponents' race numbers but recognises them by body shape or hairstyle.
"I have a very good sense of moving around in a pack of runners,'' she says. "I just feel I have a really good sense of people's mechanics moving next to me.''
Some routine tasks away from the track are much more difficult. Such as finding her green vegetable of choice. Or figuring out how to use her cellphone, a task that consumed 2{ hours. Or reading her watch.
"I don't know why I even wear it, but I guess I want to look like everybody else,'' she says. "It's just day-to-day life things that are hard. I use a lot of types of visual aids to get through day-to-day life.''
Runyan first had trouble with her eyes in the fourth grade, when she couldn't read the blackboard. The condition has degenerated to the point that Runyan now has 20-300 vision in her left eye and 20-400 in her right eye.
But that has never stopped her from playing sports. She competed in gymnastics and soccer until she couldn't see the ball any longer. She switched to track, excelling as a high jumper in high school and as a heptathlete at San Diego State.
"I struggled in the classroom,'' she says. "Everything was very laborious. When I went outside and played sports, I felt as if I could do as well as everyone else.''
After winning the 100, 200, 400 and long jump at the 1992 Paralympics, and the pentathlon at the 1996 Paralympics, she was 10th in the 1996 U.S. Olympic trials heptathlon. Then she turned exclusively to middle-distance running.
She moved to Eugene, Oregon, where some of the world's best runners train, but was sidelined for two years by a series of injuries. Runyan was teaching aerobics to senior citizens at a YMCA, earning dlrs 7 an hour, before beginning her comeback -
winning the 1,500 at the Pan American Games last year, and finishing 10th in that event at the 1999 world championships.
She injured tendons in her left leg while jumping out of the way of a child on a bicycle this June, and nearly had to pull out of the U.S. Olympic trials. But she fought through pain and finished third at the trials, claiming a spot for Sydney.
Runyan has reveled in the excitement of being at the games. On her personal Website, she recounts standing at an Olympic village bus stop with a U.S. woman who was carrying the gold medal she had won earlier in the games in rifle shooting.
"Her medal was beautiful,'' Runyan says in her on-line diary.
"I held it close to my right eye and could see an image on one side and then flipped it over and saw the Olympic rings. While this may seem strange, it made me want to cry.''
Runyan has been cheered by the help of Sydney volunteers, such as a cafeteria worker who offered to read her the entire nutritional chart for foods in the athletes' village. And she has been overwhelmed by e-mail from fans world-wide.
She has received hundreds of messages - including a letter from a boy in Turkey, an e-mail from Israel and phone calls from Argentina, South Africa and Brazil.
"A positive side effect is the impact it's having on people's lives,'' she says. ``I had no idea this would happen. I had no idea it would reach this many people.
"My race will last only four minutes, but I think the difference it's going to make in other people's lives is more long-lasting.''
On the Net: http://www.marlarunyan.com
