Before coffee:
After coffee:
Miraculous Olympic Tales:
Chris
Mears (pictured above), a British Olympic diver, suffered a ruptured spleen in January 2009, while
he was training in Sydney for the Youth Olympic Festival. He was
suffering from glandular fever but was not displaying the usual
symptoms. His organs were squeezed by acute swelling, and further aggravated
by the impact of his dives. This caused his spleen to rupture. After
losing two liters of blood and being given a 5% chance of survival by
doctors upon admission to the hospital, he was told it was likely he
would never dive again. For several days he was kept alive by medical
intervention and his platelet count was at 2. Upon discharge, Mears
remained in Australia until fit to fly. However his family returned to
their hotel room one morning to find him having a seizure on the floor.
Mears suffered a 7-hour seizure in total which led to a three-day coma.
Usually someone suffering something of this scale would be expected to
have incurred irretrievable brain-damage and physical disabilities. He
later described arguing with the doctors. who told him it was Thursday,
when he was certain it was still Monday. Despite being told that he
would never dive again, Mears made a slow introduction back into diving,
and went on to compete eighteen months later at the 2010 Commonwealth
Games in India. He does however still to this day have a trademark 30-cm
scar down the middle of his abdomen (see photo above), curtailing his abdominal movement.
At this year's Olympics in Rio, Mears showed just how well he could dive with
the best -- by winning gold in the men's synchronized 3m springboard (along with teammate Jack Laugher). It was the first gold medal for Britain in diving.
Reposted from The Closet Professor blog (clickable link):
Mears and Laugher celebrate gold!
Equestrian Nick Skelton
He’s 58 years old and has a metal replacement hip. He broke his neck 16 years ago, forcing a retirement that lasted barely two years. However, he is still in so much pain and has such limited movement that he has to use a ladder to mount his horse, Big Star, which had been struggling with injury for over two years. Yet this British show jumper, competing in his seventh Olympic games, became the first ever British rider to win the individual jumping gold medal this week at Rio’s Olympic Games. In doing so, he became the oldest British Olympic gold medalist since 1908, when Joshua Millner won a shooting gold at the age of 61.
Four years ago Skelton had helped his teammates win gold in team jumping at the London games. Talk about the comeback king!
Four years ago Skelton had helped his teammates win gold in team jumping at the London games. Talk about the comeback king!
Dressed for the weather:
Fancy a trip to Lisbon?
You gotta have art:
Peter Schaumann
Ocean City (1981)
With a side of suspenders:
Our celebrity guests:
Andrew
Jude
Leo
Pants on fire!
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