By Dan Fischer

Perched atop one of the parallel bars, Josh George watched the clock mounted across the room. When his rest interval ended, he grabbed both bars and began rapidly raising and lowering himself for 40 seconds – then smoothly dropped back into his wheelchair.

This lifting session at the Rehabilitation Education Center was the beginning of a new training cycle for George, a senior in journalism at the University of Illinois and a multi-sport athlete. In September, George won gold in the 100, 200, 400 and 800-meter track events at the International Paralympic Committee World Championships in the Netherlands. He also belongs to both the University of Illinois and U.S. wheelchair basketball teams.

"I have to make a decision now for Beijing," he said of the upcoming 2008 Paralympics.

However, on Sunday, Oct. 22, George wasn't racing on the track, but on city streets in the Chicago Marathon.

As the race began on that cold, blustery day, George didn't give himself too much of a chance, despite having won the event in 2003 and 2004. This year, entrants included Saul Mendoza and Krige Schabort, two of the top marathoners in the world. "I went into this race saying, 'Hey, you know what, these guys are in it, maybe I'll just go and tail them and see how it goes, see how long I can stay with them,'" George said.

He passed a difficult test early on. "Seven miles into the race, Krige takes off, kicks up the pace to about 22 miles an hour for about half a mile," George said. "And I managed to survive that surge. [Krige], Saul and myself managed to drop everybody else in the field. So the rest of the race, I was kind of just chilling with them."

George has shown that sort of tenacity throughout his life despite losing the use of his lower body at age 4.

"I fell out of a 12-story window," George said. "I'm a higher-level spinal cord injury. I have limited trunk control. I have no abs and no lower back and then completely zero movement in my legs."

His parents played a big part in keeping him from feeling too different from other kids by getting him involved in a variety of sports, from swimming to track to table tennis.

However, his father, Scott George, attributes his son's sense of belonging to his personality as well. "He was independent from the start," the elder George said. "We certainly encouraged it and tried very hard to never be overprotective. He was traveling around the country on his own from the time he was 16."

For George, sports are more than just recreation, and he resents the idea of wheelchair sports being seen as just handicapped people staying active.

"That's the hardest thing is getting people to understand that, sure, we're in chairs," he said, "but we put in the same amount of training as an able-bodied athlete." Indeed, the Paralympic record exceeds the able-bodied record for the bench press in the 52- and 56-kilogram weight class.

Instead of seeing his condition as something holding him back, George notes the positive opportunities in wheelchair sports. "If I wasn't in a chair, there's no way I would've traveled to as many places as I've been and seen the world," he said.

George tries to let others know about the opportunities for those in wheelchairs. "Every now and again, I'll do some public speaking or go around to elementary schools and talk to kids," he said.

George has taken his determined, upbeat attitude and carried it over into his athletic performances. "He's a real gamer," said his racing coach and training partner Adam Bleakney '00 LAS, MS '02 COM, by phone.

Paul Ward '06 AHS, a first-year graduate student in sport management, is in his fifth year on the wheelchair basketball team and has been friends with George since they were 7 or 8 years old.

"When we were growing up and racing against each other, we would always push each other to be better," Ward said. "We both, I think, hated losing to each other, so when one of us stepped up in a race, the other most likely would come back in the next race and make it even closer or beat the other."

University of Illinois wheelchair basketball head coach Mike Frogley particularly remembers George's performance in the semifinals of the 2006 College National Championships.

"Josh played some tremendous defense and came out, and he hit a three-point shot at a key point in the game. That really sustained a run and really helped establish our offense early in the game," Frogley. "He's a guy who knows how to compete."

That competitiveness proved crucial as George came down the final miles of the marathon, still neck-and-neck with Mendoza and Schabort. His competitors, surprisingly, had not really tried any more sudden bursts since mile seven. "We thought that the other guys we were really going to be challenging would attack a lot more often and sooner in the race, and that didn't happen," Bleakney said.

George felt the mounting pressure to keep up. "I knew that if I was up in that pack I had the ability to, if I was drafting, I could stay at whatever speed they were going at," he said. "But if I happened to fall out at any point in the race, I wouldn't be fast enough, on my own, to catch up.

"I kept reading my speedometer as the miles kept ticking away," he said. "I was like, 'All right, I'm staying with these guys another mile, just let me stay in another mile more.'"

The race came down towards the finish with George still in the leading pack. "I was shocked to still be there because I had never beaten those two guys ever," he said. "I'd never even been within spitting distance of them at the end of the race."

With 400 meters to go, the competitors rounded the last curve, breaking from a pack to a straight line abreast, and headed for the finish line. George pushed his speed back up to more than 20 miles an hour. "I just put my head down and sprinted to the end," he said. "I swore that one of them was going to pass me by the end of the race, but they never did."

George crossed the line just ahead of Mendoza, beating him by one second and finishing with a time of 1:38:31, first not only among the 22 wheelchair division competitors, but also over the rest of the 33,633 race finishers. "I was sort of in shock, I guess, when I crossed the line," he said, "because seriously, in all honesty, I went into the race thinking, realistically, I'll finish in third or fourth."

With wins like that, George hates to think of himself as at all limited. "Disable: not able to do something. It's sort of a horrible word," he said. "I wish there was another word for it. My coach jokes around and calls us 'handi-capable' people."

Fischer is a University of Illinois senior double-majoring in history and rhetoric.