Oscar Pistorius: Where Blade Runner Ranks Among Feel-Good Tales of 2012 Olympics

Every athlete has his own story. Every athlete has a unique reason for why he want to be and Olympian, for why he is fighting to win a gold medal, for why he wants to set a world record, for why he wants to represent his country.

All of these stories are personal and all of them are meaningful to the athletes and to the people supporting them.

With these stories, however, come a handful that are really touching and that truly pull at your heart strings. They are the stories that no matter what country you hail from and no matter what country they hail from, you just want to root for them.

They are the stories of the blade runner Oscar Pistorius, who never stopped fighting to make his dream a reality. They are the stories of Lolo Jones, who overcame poverty to become an Olympic medalist. They span the globe from America and Ireland to Sudan and Uzbekistan. They are the things about the Olympic Games that make them a completely unique event.

The design of the Olympic Games in and of itself brings about stories like these, and it is the Olympic Games that serve as the perfect place for these stories and these athletes to really show the world what it means to be a fighter, what it means to overcome adversity, what it means to win when it seems everyone and everything around you wants you to lose.

More than the rivalries, more than the medal chase, more than the festivities, these are the stories that make the games great, and these are the stories that keep us coming back for more.

15. Carrie Johnson

Carrie Johnson has been battling the waters all around the globe as an elite American sprint canoer. Since the mid 2000s she has been involved in the sport by way of the K-1 500 and K-4 500 events. She has come so close to a medal, being eliminated in the semifinals each of the last two Olympic Games.

Although fighting for a medal has so far been a losing battle for Johnson, there is another battle in her life that she has been fighting for her entire life.

Johnson has Crohn's disease, a debilitating autoimmune disorder that affects the gastrointestinal tract. Despite having this disease which could cause flare ups of pain and fatigue at any time, Johnson has continued to be a great canoer, not letting the disease beat her or tell her that she can't do what she loves.

14. John Orozco

Growing in the Bronx was not an easy life for American Olympian John Orozco. Not only did he have to overcome poverty struggles, but he also had to overcome the violence, the pressure to be in a gang and the overall bad neighborhoods that were just a part of life in the Bronx. 

Orozco's is a story of inspiration, of perseverance. He knew that he wanted to excel in gymnastics more than just for world and Olympic glory. He wanted to be a great gymnast so he could move his family out of the Bronx.

In addition to his life growing up, Orozco also suffered a bad injury after a vault in 2010. To get back to a high level of gymnastics was considered near impossible, but Orozco battled. He fought off the depression of not being able to train and used it as motivation.

If someone ever told you, you couldn't do something, then you are not alone, because being a gymnast from the Bronx? No one ever expected him to succeed. He has done so much more though, both as inspiration off the mat and as a story of determination on it.

Today, he has become one of the top gymnasts in the U.S. and in the world. He is part of the American team hoping to bring home a team gold, and he could also factor into the medals in the all-around.

13. Vavara Lepchenko

Vavara Lepchenko was born in Uzbekistan but now calls a small town in Pennsylvania her home.

Lepchenko left Uzibekistan at the age of 15 with her father and sister to participate in a tennis tournament in the U.S. After the tournament, her family made the tough decision to leave their home and the political unrest and persecution there, as the country was an area of turmoil and unrest after the disbanding of the Soviet Union.

When she came to the U.S., Lepchenko and her family were granted political asylum giving them the right to stay in the country because of the unsafe conditions back home. They took the lodging and never looked back.

She began to play in tennis tournaments, but had difficulty obtaining a visa to travel to many of the international level tours. As a result she was forced to play smaller and less prestigious tours in the U.S. On many occasions she could have given up. Unlike so many American dream stories, the odds were stacked against Lepchenko. Not only did she have to find a new home, but she also had to leave her mother behind.

In 2007, however, things began to look up. Lepchenko's mother was finally able to join the family in America, and in 2011, Lepchenko gained citizenship status making her eligible to travel to the top tennis tournaments. Completing her dream, she will be participating in the 2012 London Games representing her home of the U.S. for the first time.

12. Gender Equality for Saudi Arabia

It is a story of progress and of perseverance as Saudi Arabia is for the first time, allowing women to participate in the Olympic Games. In a decision that was not made overnight, the Saudis, a very Muslim country that does not believe in or acknowledge many of the rights of women including to play sports, finally became the last country to agree to admit women.

They did, however, make it a condition that the women could only participate while wearing headscarves, but hey, progress is progress.

Because of Saudi Arabia's decision, two women, Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani (judo) and Sarah Attar (distance running), will be representing the country proudly and will make it so that every one of the 204 countries participating in the games has at least one female.

If that's not an inspiring story of breaking through a traditional glass ceiling, then I don't know what is.

11. Caster Semenya

Caster Semenya was jubilant after winning the 800 metre race at the 2009 World Championships. Her celebration, however, was cut short as reports surfaced that Semenya was really a man and not a woman. As a result her sexuality was blatantly questioned and disputed as she was pulled from international racing for an entire year.

It was completely embarrassing for someone to call out her sexuality and it was something that looking back, I'm sure the IOC and IAAF are not proud of. Ultimately, however, justice prevailed as the testing revealed Semenya was in fact a female.

With all of that behind her, Semenya, who was chosen to carry the flag for South Africa, will be looking to win her first Olympic medal as all of the world cheers her on.

10. Dotsie Bausch

Dotsie Bausch used to be a beautiful model, far away from the sporting universe. All of that changed, however, when she went into a downward spiral and started using drugs. She also developed an eating disorder and was on the brink of total self destruction. That was until she discovered a love of cycling.

Bausch who says she owes her entire recovery to God, is an inspirational story of overcoming life's hardships to find yourself anew. When she discovered cycling, she became a new person with new goals and a new purpose in life.

Now a seven-time national champion, Bausch has used cycling to turn her life around. As her story of self redemption continues, she will participating in her first Olympic Games at the age of 39, hoping that she will win a medal, but more than that, hoping that she can share her story and help other girls from going down the path she did.

9. Lolo Jones

Getting to where she is today was not an easy journey for Lolo Jones, who spent most of her young life growing up in the worst kind of poverty imaginable.

Jones' father was not in the picture when she was growing up, and as a result, her mother became the only parent to five children. Trying to find ways to provide for her children was not easy, and as a result, they had to move around a lot and were even homeless for a period of time.

Seeing this and growing up in this never knowing where her next meal would come from or if she would have a bed the next night, Jones knew she wanted a better life for herself. She started to excel in track in high school, but it all almost came crashing to an end when her mother was forced to uproot again.

Knowing she couldn't move again, Jones made the tough decision to leave her mother behind. She lived with friends on and off, never really having a place to call home until she was awarded a full ride scholarship to LSU for track.

In London she will be looking to make up for a devastating performance in Beijing that saw her clip the last hurdle and finish crying on the sidelines, out of the race and off the podium. For Jones who had been through so much, it was just another thing that could have kept her down, to keep her from getting up in the morning.

She didn't let it, however. Throughout her life she never let anything beat her and making another Olympic team, it would only be fitting for Jones, who has had so much hardship in her life, to finally come out on top and to finally get a win.

8. Nur Suryani

Nur Suryani is doing something that only four women have done before her. It doesn't involve the sport she participates in, 10 metre rifle shooting. It doesn't have to do with the country she hails from, Malaysia. No, what makes her special is the little person growing inside of her.

Suryani, despite not making the final in her shooting event, will soon have a little girl to go home to, as she entered the London Games over seven months pregnant. As I mentioned, Suryani was the fourth woman to be pregnant at the games, but at seven months, she also became the first to be this far along.

If her run at the Games hadn't ended so shortly, this definitely would have made for a great headline story. Nevertheless, Suryani just proves that pregnant or not, there is nothing a woman can't do.

7. Eric Shanteau

There aren't many people that can say they swam in an Olympic race just a week after finding out they had testicular cancer. There also aren't many people that can say they overcame that cancer and got back in the pool just a year later.

For this reason, Eric Shanteau really is a great and inspirational story. Not only is he currently in remission, but in addition to returning to competitive swimming and winning two world championships golds in the 4x100 relay, Shanteau has also become an avid activist in speaking about cancer awareness.

He is just another example of a feel-good story that goes beyond sports and that can truly touch lives across the globe.

6. Queen Underwood

Queen Underwood is a phenomenal boxer. She is a five-time national champion and is ranked as the fourth best female boxer in the world. She has a drive to be unstoppable, to be the best in the world, to never allow anyone to hurt her again.

In a painful past, Underwood and her sister were frequently raped by their father. With no way to escape it as a child, she knew that she never wanted to feel helpless again. So she took up  boxing as a way to get her aggression out and as way to protect herself.

It proved to be a great decision for Underwood, who will be one of several boxers representing the first contest of female boxing in the Olympic Games. She is in pursuit of Olympic gold but more than that she wants to serve as an advocate for little girls everywhere, to make them believe anything is possible.

5. Bryshon Nellum

Bryshon Nellum was a star at USC. He was one of the best on its track and field team and was expected to contend for Olympic medals in his near future. As it happened, however, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and his life as he knew it took a halting turn.

Mistaken for a member of a rival gang, Nellum was shot while walking home from a party his sophomore year. The injury was not life-threatening, but for Nellum, the most decorated high school sprinter in the history of California, it was even worse as the bullets went into both of his legs.

It seemed all but certain that his running career was over. He was told he would be able to walk again, but doctors were very leery that he would ever be able to run at world-class speed again.

Nellum, however, was determined not to give up and after 44 months, three surgeries and countless frustration, the man who promised himself he would run again was doing just that. He stunned the entire track and field universe when he finished third at U.S. Trials and qualified for a spot on the Olympic team.

4. Lopez Lomong

Lopez Lomong began running when he was just six years old and he hasn't stopped since.

At just six, Lomong was one of 100 boys that were kidnapped from mass in his native home of Sudan. The purpose was to turn them into child soldiers, something that is one of the worst things that some foreign countries have ever embraced.

Not knowing what was going to be his fate, Lomong made the decision to leave his kidnappers, so he ran. He ran from the prison in Sudan and kept running, miles after miles, until he reached Kenya. He spent the next 10 years in a Kenyan refugee camp.

At age 16, Lomong was taken in by a family in New York. He continued his love of running as he won a New York State high school championship and then went on to attend Northern Arizona University and then to win a place on the 2008 Olympic team. His story was so inspirational, he was chosen as the U.S. flagbearer in the Beijing opening ceremonies.

Although this story is four years old, it is no less inspirational than it was then. Lomong is truly a great story as he overcame one of the most difficult things, and he did it when he was just a child. Running saved his life, and that is something that is truly amazing to think about.

3. Jordan Jovtchev

Eight years ago, Bulgarian gymnast Jordan Jovtchev, narrowly missed out on winning the gold medal. At age 31, already an older statesman in the sport of gymnastics, Jovtchev won the silver in his signature event of the still rings.

In a sport that is better geared to youth and that does not often see athletes compete past their late 20s, Jovtchev is defying all of the odds. At 39 years old, not only is he the oldest gymnast in the field, but he is also one of the key figures in developing the Bulgarian national team with his ultimate hope to bring the country back to gymnastic glory.

Until that happens however, Jovtchev is still competing, and with a stellar performance on the first day, will actually have a chance to win a gold medal as he qualified for the event final in the still rings.

In addition to what Jovtchev, the flag-bearer for Bulgaria, means for his country and his sport, he is also a living example that age really is only just a number. 

2. Oscar Pistorius

And now time for the story that inspired this slideshow, the story that has resonated around the Olympic world ever since the name Oscar Pistorius was first brought to our attention.

Pistorius was born with fibulas in both of his legs and at just 11 months old, his parents decided to follow the doctor's recommendation and have both of his legs amputated. When he was just over a year old, he was fitted with his prosthetic legs.

An instant story for the ages, Pistorius grew up a normal kid, playing sports just like everyone else. It wasn't until an injury in 2003, however, that had Pistorius turn to the sport of running and from there, it's all history.

He found a true calling in track and was a very talented athlete. He began competing in the Paralympics and won a handful of medals in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre races. In 2008, he decided that he wanted to do more than just compete in the Paralympics as he felt he was able-bodied enough to attempt to qualify for the Olympic Games.

He just missed qualifying in Beijing, and that is when the story of the blade runner went viral. In 2011, he won the silver medal at the World Championships and just a few months later found out that he would be going to the London Games to participate in the 400 and 4x100 metre relay.

Getting to this point was not easy for Pistorius, who has faced criticism and adversity almost every step along the way. He was initially denied an Olympic berth as people fought that his prosthetics gave him an advantage. Pistorius, however, would not let that stop him and he showed the determination and conviction of an Olympian. He never gave up and eventually was allowed to qualify for the Games. 

His story is one of defying the odds, of doing something that no one ever expected you to do. It is about courage and fight and determination, and it truly is a story that marks what the Olympic spirit is all about.

1. Kieran Behan

Kieran Behan, a gymnast from Ireland, is plain and simple, someone everyone should want to root for and is easily the best feel-good story of the London Games.

His journey toward the Olympics was filled with bumps along the way, as it almost seemed as if something was in the works to keep Behan off of the mats and out of the sport of gymnastics. With everything playing against him however, Behan proved the true definition of what it means to be a fighter.

It all started when at just 10 years old, Behan developed a tumor in his leg. It wasn't cancerous, but something went wrong in the operation which forced him to be in a wheelchair. He was told he would never walk again, but he wasn't about to give up. He was in the chair just 15 months before re-learning to use his leg and getting back into the gym.

Then two years later, he suffered a bad fall as in a freak accident he landed on his head after toppling from the high bar. The injury was so bad that Behan was once again confined to a wheelchair. Told for a second time he would never walk again, he didn't let it get him down. Just three years later, he was back in the gym.

Being a gymnast didn't get easier for Behan who after returning to the gym, tore both of his ACL in his knee. Still, he persevered. He overcame adversity as he had his whole life and finally made his dream a reality by getting to the Olympic Games, becoming only the second representative from Ireland to qualify for the Games. 

Although he won't medal, he has proven to all of us, to everyone watching, that sometimes winning gold isn't everything. Sometimes just getting there is all that counts.