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Father, Son Begin 3,300-mile Freedom Run Across the United StatesA father-and-son team has begun a 3,300-mile trek
across the United States to raise funds for the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP), Jacksonville, Florida, the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF), San Diego, California, and the Sunshine Foundation, Feasterville, Pennsylvania.
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Courtney Arciaga (in red) leads the charge, with Warren and Tom Knoll close behind, during the March 1 kick off of the 2008 Freedom Run. Photograph courtesy of the Sunshine Foundation. |
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Ironman competitors Tom Knoll, 75, and his son Warren, 44, will average 30-mile runs each of the next 112 days. Warren will not only run the 30 miles, but he will be driven back to the starting point each day and bike the same distance, marking the first time an individual has run and biked cross country in the same event.
The 2008 Freedom Run across America started at the San Diego, California, Marine Corps Recruit Depot on March 1, and is scheduled to finish July 4 at the Marine Corps Memorial in Washington DC. Throughout the run, other runners, joggers, walkers, and wheelchair racers are encouraged to join in for a portion of the event. The Knolls will do some public speaking en route to promote physical fitness among children, adults, and senior citizens.
Tom, an original Ironman from 1978, has completed 185 marathons and ultramarathons, as well as one previous run across the United States. Additionally, he has completed nine charity runs of 250 miles and another 500-mile charity event, which circled the island of Okinawa, Japan. He also ran a 300-mile event in three days and seven hours, raising more than $25,000 for muscular dystrophy.
Tom has raised more than $500,000 and expects to reach his lifetime goal of $1 million-plus with his 2008 cross-country run. He spent 33 years in the Marine Corps and is a veteran of the Korea and Vietnam wars. After September 11, 2001, at the age of 70, he served in Afghanistan and Iraq for a government intelligence agency. He now teaches aboard Navy ships for Central Texas College and resides in Honolulu, Hawaii. Warren has completed 40 marathons and is a writer for
Triathlete Magazine
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For more information, visit
www.usfreedomrun.com
Pistorius Persists; IAAF Not Swayed
Bilateral amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius
claims new tests on his Cheetah Flex-Foot prosthetic racing limbs manufactured by Ossur contradict an earlier study which led the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to declare him ineligible for the Olympics.
The IAAF, however, doesn't accept the new findings.
"It is one thing when you do a laboratory test where you agree to the protocols and witnessing, and another thing when you don't," IAAF spokesman Nick Davies told The Associated Press (AP). "It is really not up to us to judge because we have already made a decision."
Based on tests performed by German professor Gert-Peter Brueggemann, the IAAF ruled in January 2008 that Pistorius is ineligible to run in the Beijing Olympics—or any other sanctioned able-bodied competitions—because Pistorius running legs have been deemed "technical aids" that give him a clear advantage.
But Pistorius commissioned his own tests in February in Houston, Texas, and contends they produced sharply different results, which could boost his chance of competing in Beijing after all.
"I am very optimistic as to the results; they were very positive," Pistorius told the AP in South Africa. "Some were very different [than] the results from the tests in Germany."
Davies said the IAAF was sticking to the results of the German study. 
Table Of Contents - April 2008
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