This article is priceless. For anyone that’s been touch by diabetes you know the challenges. For anyone that has been or attempted to be an elite level athlete, you know the challenges. But both. And to stay on top year after year is simply amazing. I know what it takes to be a competitive athlete, but the Olympics is another world of commitment, dedication and sacrifice. Mandy should be, and is, an inspiration to anyone that has dared to dream, to sacrifice and thrive after being told she can’t.
I distinctly remember the day when my doctor told me that my primary problem was that I didn’t want to act my age. I wont repeat what I had to say but I will share with you what I thought. Just because some else views a current set of circumstances as limitations that would prevent them form achieving what they want in life that doesn’t mean they need to be mine. Those words were the doctor’s words that revealed to me his limited view of possibilities. I chose not to share his view, but I was 45 at the time. Mandy was 16! She chose her own view and she didn’t let someone else set her limits. That one single statement could have ended an already brilliant cycling career and prevented the world from realizing a much needed role model.
Mandy didn’t let those words, coming from a person of authority, shape her reality. Instead she decided to shape her own and in doing so she very well may have expanded the scope of possibilities for many future athletes.