LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — April Holmes has carried around her gold medal in the 100 meters for nearly four years now, ever since she won it at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.
America’s No. 1 paralympic sprinter loves to show the shimmering prize to anyone who asks. But she’s not doing so to be boastful.
Holmes flashes the gold whenever asked to let people know what she’s won — and what she’s lost. And above all, her goal is to convey the message of perseverance and hope that drives her every day.
She wants absolutely no sympathy for the horrifying train accident that befell her some 11 years ago in Philadelphia — a freak mishap that resulted in doctors amputating her left leg beneath the knee.
The life-changing event put her on a new path.
It is a life she has embraced to inspire and assist those in need of a lift and one that’s carried her to the pinnacle of her sport, powered by a state-of-the-art prosthesis and an unflagging determination to keep pushing forward.
This weekend, that path leads Holmes to the Paralympic Track and Field Trials at Purdue University — and then, barring any unforeseen developments, to the late-August Paralympic Games in London that she’s been dreaming about since Beijing.
That gets back to the reason she carries around that gold medal. It tells the story of everything April Holmes stands for and aspires to in sports and in life.
She went to Beijing as the favorite to win the 100 and 200 meters in her class, having burst onto the international scene in 2004 by setting world records in both events. Though she wound up finishing sixth and seventh in Athens at the Paralympics, Holmes took home the bronze in the women’s long jump.
But in her first event in China, soon after the Olympic Games, Holmes’ quest for 200-meter gold took an unexpected turn. Soaring around the turn in first place, she stumbled and fell hard on the track, tripping up France’s Marie-Amelie le Fur in the process.
As Holmes rolled on the track, another competitor accidentally spiked her on the right side of her face, causing blood to flow down her cheek.
“I ended up stubbing my prosthetic toe in the track and tripping and falling,” she recalled recently from her training base at Walt Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex. “But my philosophy in life is if you start something, you need to finish it. I knew I’d lost the race and there was no chance of gold, silver or bronze. But I also knew that I’d started the race.”
So, to the surprise of the 91,000-plus spectators in the stadium, Holmes pulled herself up and began stumbling to the finish line.
“I had blood running down my face and my leg was hurt, but I didn’t care,” she said. “I knew I had five more days to redeem myself and that I had a gold medal to go get in the 100 meters.”
Her leg and hip ached so much from the spill that even warming up prior to the 100 was a challenge. She purposely hid the extent of her condition from family members in the stands. But when the starter’s pistol sounded, Holmes burst from the blocks and blasted down the track to first place in 13.72 seconds — learning only after the event that she had accomplished the feat in spite of a labral tear in her left hip.
“So ever since then, I’ve carried that gold medal around and showed it to people — let them hold it or take pictures with it,” she said. “Some folks ask, ‘Can I act like I’m biting your gold medal?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t care.’ Because I believe that God didn’t just give this to me.
“There are so many people who encouraged me along my journey. So if I can take my gold medal out and let them see it and hold it — even bite it — then that may encourage them along their journey and with their dreams.”
Of course, it’s not the first time Holmes has suffered a fall and a loss and found a way to get back up and score a resounding triumph of human spirit.
She had been an All-American track star at Norfolk State in the 400 and 4x400 relay, but she decided to leave competitive athletics behind after graduating from the school to pursue a career in communications.
That led her to find work in Philadelphia, where she also began pursuing her master’s in marketing at Drexel University. But everything changed in January 2001 when Holmes attempted to board a train at 30th Street Station bound for New York City. She lost her footing while stepping from the platform and fell to the tracks below. The car had already begun to roll and pinned her leg. By the time the conductor saw what was happening, it was too late. She remained conscious through most of the ordeal, singing gospel songs and praying. But the train couldn’t be budged in a frantic attempt to save her leg.
“I was underneath the platform with the train actually resting on my leg,” she recalled. “And when I woke up two hours later and found out my leg was amputated, I was initially devastated because I didn’t know anyone who was an amputee. I didn’t know what life entailed for an amputee. And I knew that track and basketball were two sports that I loved, and I wasn’t able to do them anymore — so I thought.”
But Holmes’ outlook quickly changed.
“When I woke up the next morning after surgery, I was like, ‘OK, this is your life — if God didn’t want you to be here any more, you wouldn’t be here,’ ” she said. “And it was about a week or two later that the doctor who did my emergency surgery came by and gave me some magazines about the Paralympics.”
She’d never heard of it, but it was instantly intrigued by the possibilities.
"Here I was with what I call 'one and three-quarter legs,' and I said to myself, ‘This is my dream — this is where my next dream in life is going to come from,’ ” Holmes recalled. “And as I looked through the magazines, I said, ‘Hey, I want to wear that USA uniform. I want to be the best in the world. I want some gold medals. So I need to hurry and get out of this bed and get my leg so I can get moving.”
Holmes was fitted with a prosthetic leg within months and competed in her first race a year later, taking first place at an international challenge meet at Disney. In 2003, she won a gold medal in the 200 at the German National Championships. Then came her breakout, record-setting year of ’04, along with a Paralympic bronze in Athens.
Her rise caught the attention of basketball superstar Michael Jordan, who brought Holmes into the fold as part of his Jordan Brand, helping sponsor her efforts. She made important strides training with former Olympic triple-jump gold medalist Al Joyner and works out at Disney under the supervision of coaching great Brooks Johnson.
“He’s been around the sport almost his whole life and has had athletes on every Olympic team since 1968,” she said. “He comes out here every single day and gives us all his education and knowledge. . . . He’s such an awesome guy, and I definitely consider it an honor to be able to train with him."
Johnson cuts Holmes no slack, giving her the same training regimen as all the other sprinters and hurdlers he coaches. Holmes wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s focused on moving forward without constraints (even refusing to park in handicap parking spaces).
Holmes’ story has continued to gain fans and recognition. In March, she was invited to the White House by the Obamas for a state dinner, and she teamed with first lady Michelle Obama for an event promoting youth fitness. She even went back and got her master’s, earning her degree online from the University of Phoenix.
Much of her time away from competition is spent on work with the April Holmes Foundation, which the 39-year-old founded in 2002 to provide support for people with physical and learning disabilities.
“One of the things I learned going through the process myself is that a lot of people have no idea where to turn to in terms of medical equipment, scholarships and job placement,” she said. “I started out to provide encouragement, and if I can give them a couple of dollars along the way, that’s what we want to do.”
Partnering with the Jordan Brand, something Holmes considers a high honor as a lifelong fan, has led to other opportunities. Her foundation has been able to sponsor an essay contest. “We’ve given away 100 pairs of Jordan sneakers to people with physical and learning disabilities based on the idea that Michael and his shoes made people believe that they could fly.”
Holmes, meanwhile, continues to make believers out of people with the way she flies down the track, with a smooth, fluid stride that hints of no handicap whatsoever. She does sport one sign of her condition: a tattoo on her left thigh of Mickey Mouse handing a baton to a Minnie Mouse with a prosthetic left leg.
The tattoo was placed in a spot on her leg to cover up a scar from her hip surgery. “I didn’t want to see that — I’d rather see Mickey and Minnie,” she said, smiling.
As a pre-race ritual, Holmes rubs the tattoo to draw inspiration. But more than anything, she’s devoted to providing it — medal after gold medal.
