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“There have been bad moments,” says Stockwell, now 31. “But I tend be a pretty optimistic person. From Day 1, I decided I was going to move on and take what I had and run with it. I’m lucky to have great family and friends at my side, but looking back at it, I was able to accept it pretty early on.”


The loss of a limb is difficult for anyone, let alone someone who spent her childhood as an accomplished gymnast, pole vaulter and diver, dreaming of competing in the Olympics.


As a child growing up in Georgia and Minnesota, Stockwell swam enough to know the strokes, but it was not until swimming for rehabilitation at Walter Reed that she came to appreciate it. Though she could not generate as much lower body momentum in the water kicking with one leg, she quickly discovered the catch-and-pull stroke and importance of body roll was the same.


She went back to Minnesota, joined a club team and began a program to work in prosthetics, eventually moving to Chicago for a residency.


In 2008, Stockwell put her career on hold to relocate to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. She landed a spot on the U.S. Paralympic team, swam three events in Beijing, and was chosen to carry the U.S. flag into Beijing National Stadium (aka “The Bird’s Nest”).


The experience stoked her competitive juices enough to give triathlon a try. She had participated in the Challenged Athletes Foundation’s San Diego Triathlon in 2005, using a handcycle rather than running. She also competed in a sprint triathlon in Minnesota and did the swim leg as part of a relay team for several events.


Then she took her training up a notch. Last year, she finished the Ironman 70.3 event at Oceanside, Calif., and in September won a gold medal at the International Triathlon Union Paratriathlon World Championship in Budapest, Hungary.


The recent decision of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to add paratriathlon for the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, has her thinking ahead, especially if paratriathlon is added as an exhibition sport for the 2012 event in London. Even if she has to wait until 2016, she’ll be only 36, still in her athletic prime for multisport.


Stockwell still is adjusting to training in Chicago, where she works for a prosthetics company, fitting recent amputees.


“I mold them for the socket around the missing limb and get them up and literally back on their feet,” she says. “It’s extremely rewarding. Having gone through it myself, it doesn’t make me better at making (prosthetics) but the comfort level is there, and I do have insight to give someone who has just lost a leg above the knee.”


Stockwell also serves as a motivational speaker, addressing groups ranging from corporate executives to grade-schoolers. The kids, she finds, tend to ask the best questions.


“They’ll ask if there was a lot of blood and rather than get into that in too much detail, I’ll say, ‘yes, there was a lot of blood, but look where I am today. I can run just like you can.’”


That’s just part of a powerful message she leaves here audiences. “You can do anything,” she says. “Obstacles will come your way but if you have the right attitude and surround yourself with people who care, you will get through it and come out better on the other side.”

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