Josh George has held world records in several sprints and long-distance races alike.

He weighs 98 pounds, but benches 220 pounds. Make that 98 pounds of pure muscle.

He does shoulder dips with 100 pounds strapped to his back.

Strong lungs to dominate marathons on consecutive weekends. Lightning-fast hands to spin tires at 140 pumps per minute.

But this 24-year-old monster athlete has legs the size of a six-year-old's.

Josh George is one of the predominant wheelchair racers going today. Like Oscar Pistorius, "The Fastest Man on No Legs" whom I profiled last week, George is expected to make major waves this summer in Beijing, when he trains his voracious competitiveness on the Paralympics.

"If a doctor said a magic pill could probably let me walk again, I wouldn't take it," said George, who has won three Chicago Marathons. "I've worked very hard to be who I am."

Photo by Deborah McFadden

There's talk that George will not only compete well, but will rise to another level -- to break the bigs. Will he, like Pistorius, be the one to break out of the niche category of 'wheelchair racer,' to fire the popular imagination? To become a world-famous mainstream athlete?

If George puts it all together, many in wheelchair racing say that he could be a breakthrough athlete, someone whose talent and personality could attract mainstream United States audiences and advertisers. (Many other nations' top wheelchair racers -- like Britain's Weir and Canada's Chantal Petitclerc -- are considered national sports heroes, worthy of product endorsements and other rewards.) This could prove crucial for George, because modest race purses barely help him make ends meet; in a few years, like many American wheelchair athletes before him, he could be forced to work a regular job, hurting his training.

"Is he the guy that can get the Coke ad? I think that he is," said Amanda McGrory, who finished second in the London Marathon among women and is another top United States medal contender for Beijing. "If anyone can do it, he will be the one that will be able to change wheelchair racing."

See this article, complete with film and multimedia analysis of George's technique and equipment:

A Blur of Hands, Spokes and Determination by Alan Schwarz, May 15, 2008, New York Times

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