Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Pages: Rudy Project: Swim, bike, run... on one leg
By John Pages
Matchpoint
“John,” he asked last month. “Can you write my profile for our company website?”
Who can refuse Rudy? I didn't. Not when his story is one of the most inspiring that you'll read...
It's July 1995. One man is ready to swim. No, not from one swimming pool-end to the other, but from one island to another: Guimaras to Negros . The distance? 32 kilometers. The hazards? The black sea is murky and rough, swarming with jellyfish and sharks.
Rudy Fernandez leaps. He throws one arm into the water, then another, he gasps for air, then pedals forward. One hour has passed. Two hours. Three, four... an alarm sounds. The boat accompanying Rudy blares a loud siren. There's panic.
Nothing's wrong with Rudy, but it's something in the water, encircling the swimmer. The patrolmen look. No, it' s not a jellyfish or a shark—but something maybe scarier: a sea serpent called “walo-walo.” It circles Rudy, teases him, draws near, ready to pounce on the fatigued swimmer.
Rudy stops, treads on water, while the men on board aim their rifles. The serpent disappears. Thank God, Rudy thinks, that problem is gone. Now, an even bigger one lies ahead: there are 16 kms. more to go...
Finally, eight hours and 43 minutes after he jumped off Guimaras, Rudy's arm touches the shores of Bacolod . Dozens greet him at the City of Smiles .
Rudy smiles. Everybody smiles.
Unbelievable? Not yet. Wait until you read this: Rudy Fernandez swam with only one leg.
* * *
It is April 2004. It's the day after Holy Week and I'm seated inside an eatery in Iloilo City named Tony's eating bihon. Rudy Fernandez sits across me.
He is 56, dark-skinned, sports a mustache and a pair of deep-set light brown eyes. On his wrist is a Timex Ironman watch. He wears a World Cup France '98 cap and a pair of black Adidas rubber shoes: one for the left leg, all flesh-and-blood, and another for his right leg—the mechanical hydraulic leg.
“I'm half-human, half-machine,” he jokes.
From an envelope, Rudy pulls out a gold medal. “I was the lone one-legged competitor at the Subic Intl. Triathlon,” he says. “I beat several two-legged competitors my age.”
For years now, I longed to meet RP's No.1 one-legged triathlete. One-legged? Was Rudy always minus one?
No. There was a time when Rudy was RP's No.1 two-legged athlete. In September 1972, at the Peska Sukan Championships in Singapore —today's SEA Games—Rudy was a 24-year-old champion. Twice he sprinted, twice he medaled: a silver and a bronze. Rudy was peerless at the oval.
Until tragedy struck. The year was 1978 when Rudy entered the Alegro Theater in Iloilo . In the middle of the movie, a grenade was tossed. BOOM! Dozens died and the theatre turned red. And just like that, Rudy's dreams—and his right leg—were blown to pieces. “I wanted to end it all,” he tells me. “My legs were everything.”
Born to a poor family with 10 other siblings in Ajuy, Panay , Rudy spent years enduring sleepless nights at the Good Shepherd's Orphanage. I ask how he coped. “My only way out of poverty,” he says, “was sports.”
After that blast, first on wheelchair, then on crutches, it took years for Rudy to lift himself up. Literally. Until he read about Terry Fox. “He was an athlete-turned-amputee who ran across Canada , raised $24 million for charity and inspired millions,” he says. “I knew I could do it, so I made it my mission.”
Soon after, sweat started trickling down Rudy's face; his left leg turned iron-hard muscular. He put on an artificial wooden right leg and ran for hours. “To lose a leg, is no reason,” he says, “to lose hope.”
* * *
It is August 1987. For five days straight, Rudy runs, from Sara to Iloilo , 105 kms. Two months after, from southern to northern Iloilo , 150 kms. The next month, from Victorias to Bacolod , 38 kms.
A total 14 excruciating feats Rudy has finished to date. All for personal glory? “No. My goal is to inspire,” he says. “Especially the less fortunate. The greatest achievements are those that benefit others.”
By the year 2000, Rudy is a hero. Then disaster bites back. While training on a bike, an L300 rams Rudy head-on.
He flies through the van's windshield and undergoes a major operation. Quit?
A month later, still bruised and aching, he fastens his head gear, spins those pedals, and tackles the road. “The mind commands the body,” he says. Eight months later he bikes Panay in 13 hours, all of 246 kms.
Today, Rudy Fernandez is a national celebrity. Since joining the Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Edition contest on ABS-CBN, crowds swarm around him in mall visits and millions have seen him on TV.
But one thing hasn't changed. Rudy continues to share with the less fortunate. He offers his time to charity. He runs and swims and pedals to show the world that “The Filipino can!”
For with the one-legged Rudy, all he needs is one brave heart.