Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind

By Geoff Davies © Canwest News Service, AMHERST, Nova Scotia — Paul Wilmot couldn’t help but think about the symbolism of the Olympic torch he carried Saturday morning through this Nova Scotia town. “I’ll be praying for world peace,” the 48-year-old outdoor recreation professor said before his portion of the relay, which took place shortly before the torch was set to leave Nova Scotia. Wilmot said, for him, the flame represents struggle against adversity, a struggle many people have faced during the history of the Games, and one he knows all too well. “For me, the torch represents an opportunity for people to find all kinds of good things in what we do as opposed to focusing energy on negative things.” Wilmot pointed to one of the Games’ darkest times as an example of how the Olympic spirit had triumphed through adversity. During the 1936 Olympics in Berlin — the Games that Adolf Hitler and others in the Nazi party had hoped would show the superiority of the Aryan race — Jesse Owens, a black American track-and-field athlete, stepped up to make a different kind of statement, winning four gold medals. Wilmot has overcome his own adversity. Sent away from his Mi’kmaq community at a young age because of his visual impairment, Wilmot said he had to learn to accept being stuck between two worlds that didn’t accept him…. READ ARTICLE