SIDELINES : Paralyzed Climber, Partner Win
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NEW YORK — Mark Wellman, who continued to climb mountains after being paralyzed in a fall, and his climbing partner, Mike Corbett, were named winners today of the Tanqueray Achievement Award for highest standards of excellence in amateur sports.
Wellman, 29, has been paralyzed below the waist since a fall while climbing in 1982 and says he continues to climb “because it is the only way I can get out of my wheelchair.”
He and Corbett are on the staff at Yosemite National Park, where they made the climb that won them the award--a 3,500-foot ascent of El Capitan, an almost solid wall of granite, last July in 100-degree plus temperatures and high winds.
Other winners during the previous 22 years of the award include Bo Jackson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Jim Abbott and Darryl Strawberry.
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