Person of the Week: Marlon Shirley

Sept. 18, 2004 -- Marlon Shirley is one of the fastest people in the world, even though he has a prosthetic foot.

"It's something I train for every single day. It's almost just like an automatic movement of my body springing down the track," he said.

Shirley is competing this weekend in the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece. The games' official motto is "focus on the athlete and not on the disability," and Shirley, 26, is chasing five gold medals.

"We all have our own type of disabilities," he said. "Mine just happens to be physical, and you can see it very easily when I run. But you can't tell it by the time I get done racing."

He won a gold medal at the Paralympic Games in Australia four years ago.

"I couldn't remember much of it all. I just remember starting, and I just remember having my arms up at the end," he said.

Shirley is an extraordinary athlete. He hold the long jump record for disabled athletes, and he was the first amputee to run the 100-meter dash in under 11 seconds — only two seconds less than the world record for men who have both their legs.

Shirley's prosthetic foot is made of carbon fiber titanium, materials developed in the aerospace industry. He is clearly testing the limits of what a prosthetic foot can do.

"The feet? They've lasted me forever," he said.

Troubled Childhood

Shirley did not have a great start in life.

He was 3 years old when his mother abandoned him on the Las Vegas Strip. After bouncing around foster homes and being abused, he had an accident that would change his life.

He was jumping on a lawn mower and slipped. The injury resulted in several amputations; his left leg ends just below the knee.

"I remember running around on crutches just like I'd run around if I had another foot," he said. "I definitely never looked at myself any differently than anyone else."

He was finally adopted by a loving family in Utah.

"I grew up in northern Utah. It probably was not the easiest situation for [my adoptive parents], but hopefully by what I'm doing with my life right now is a way for me to show them I appreciate what they've done," Shirley said.

In 1997, a coach saw potential in the rambunctious, athletic kid and took him to a competition for disabled athletes. In his first meet, Shirley broke the high jump record.

Today, Shirley lives and trains at an Olympic facility in San Diego. He runs and jumps against athletes who are not disabled.

"When you train with somebody that's faster than you, it pulls you through the line, it makes you train harder," Shirley said. "Those guys consider me just as much as an athlete as they do themselves and their competitors."

In his fairly short career, Shirley has already broken a half-dozen world records for disabled athletes. He thinks the next four years will be his best.

Shirley is looking for even better prosthetic technology. He wants to jump further and run even faster.

"I run the 100-meter dash in under 11 seconds, I long-jump over 24 feet," he said. "Anything can be done."

Peter Jennings filed this report for World News Tonight.