One of those is the 200m Men T44 (lower leg amputation), the other a wheelchair event for women in which the Belgian national pride and 2012 Paralympic Games Champion Marieke Vervoort will take part.
After two disastrous years in a row Marieke Vervoort is making an incredible comeback and she keeps fighting back in order to realize her big dream : to participate in the AG Insurance Memorial Van Damme.
After her accident at the 2013 World Championships where she clashed in the 800m with the later winner Michelle Stilwell, the doctors didn’t give her much hope on making a comeback at a high level of performance. But 8 months later she took up wheelchair racing again and she broke the 1500m, the 5000m and the 800m World Records. The last one in her hometown Lier and she took that World Record from her great rival Michelle Stilwell.
In 2014 she was very unfortunate again. She burned her skin severely in a home accident and had to stay in hospital for a long period. Therefore she was unable to participate at the AG Insurance Memorial Van Damme. But Marieke did not want to give up her dream and she is back on the track, even when conditionally she still has a lot of work to do. Training is going very fine and in the month of May Marieke will do some racing and decide on which distance she prefers to compete at the meeting in Brussels in September.
There is no doubt that Marieke will be extremely motivated when she enters the stadium in front of her home crowd.
12 May, 2015
