Irish Determination

A life frittered away disgusts God;

He loves those who run straight for the finish line.

Proverbs 15:9

Kieran Behan was just a young Irish lad of maybe 6, when he fell in love with the sport of gymnastics by watching the Summer Olympic Games.  He told his mother that he would be an Olympic gymnast one day.  He truly believed it, and she never doubted him, but that was before life decided to start throwing curve balls at him.

Kieran started gymnastics training when he was 8 and showed a real talent for tumbling.  But when he was 10, he found a golf-ball sized lump on his leg.  Surgery revealed it to be a benign tumor, but the doctors left a tourniquet on too long, causing nerve damage that left his leg with extreme sensitivity and his foot with little sensation.  He could not walk, and the doctors said he probably never would.  Fifteen months later, he fought his way back and returned to gymnastics.

Eight months later, he smacked his head on the horizontal bar during a routine and collapsed with a traumatic brain injury and severe damage to his inner ear.  He blacked out constantly, and he struggled to turn his head, feed himself, or walk without stumbling like a drunk man.  It took nearly two years for him to regain his hand-eye coordination, and then he returned to gymnastics.  He broke his arm; he fractured his wrist.  He tore a ligament in his right knee that required six months of rehabilitation.  In 2010, he tore the same ligament in his left knee.  In the face of all his injuries, it would have been easy (and understandable) to quit.  But he would not - indeed, could not.  Finally, in 2011, Kieran won three World Cup medals, including Ireland's fist World Cup Gold Medal - in floor exercise.

And now?  He is in the Olympics.  He has no illusions that he is going to medal.  That isn't why he is there.  He is there for love of the sport, and to set an example to young people everywhere to relentlessly pursue their dream.  He hopes to inspire others to overcome the hardships that often stand in the way of our goals.  Of gymnastics, Behan says: I was just born to do this.  And so he will, while we all watch and cheer.