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Transplant
Athletics
The success of
transplant athletics - specifically, the U.S. Transplant Games - has
created new opportunities to demonstrate the success of
transplantation and the critical need for additional donors. The
transplant community has joined efforts to initiate successful
programs that celebrate the rehabilitation of former chronically ill
individuals who, through the lifesaving therapy of transplantation,
are able to live full and productive lives. The Transplant Games
allow recipients to test the challenges of human potential through
the arena of athletic competition.
The
U.S. Transplant Games
The U.S. Transplant
Games is a four-day athletic competition among recipients of organ
transplants. Competition in the U.S. Transplant Games is open to
anyone who has received a lifesaving solid organ transplant - heart,
liver, kidney, lung, and pancreas. Bone marrow recipients are also
eligible to participate. As much as the Games is an athletic event
that calls attention to the success of organ and tissue
transplantation, it is also a celebration of life among recipients,
their families and friends. For more information and history on the
U.S. Games, World and Winter Games, please visit the National
Transplant Athletics site.
Team
Southern California
Team Southern California
sent over 40 athletes and 7 donor family members to the 2000
U.S.
Transplant Games in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The
team brought home medals in bowling, racquetball, swimming, tennis,
and track & field.
Team member Maia Thayer,
age 11, was one of only two recipients to receive the "Mickey
Mantle Courage Award" of the 2000 Games.
The team is currently
gearing up for the 2002
U.S. Transplant Games to be held again at Disney's
Wide World of Sports™ in Lake Buena
Vista, Florida on June 25-29. The team is planning various
fundraising, organ donation and transplantation awareness events.
Team Southern California is also actively recruiting transplant
recipients to be a part of its medal winning family.
Please contact the team
manager if you would like to financially support Team
Southern California or would like to receive more information.
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