 BLIND RUNNER HEADING TO SYDNEY OLYMPICS
July 16, 2000
Marla Runyan is a runner, but she made a historic leap Sunday in Sacramento, Calif., becoming the first legally blind woman to qualify for the Olympic Games in the 1,500 meters. Runyan finished third in the U.S. Olympic Trials, overcoming both a form of macular degeneration called Stargardt's Disease, which she has had since she was a kid, and a recent leg injury that hampered her ability to train and warm up for the qualifying race. Runyan, who won gold medals in the pentathlon, the long jump and several running events in the 1992 and 1996 Paralympic Games, said after Sunday's race her achievement calls into question peoples' perceptions of disability. "I don't think I look disabled," she said, noting the leg injury hampered her more than her vision did.8
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