Paralympian Eyes Olympic Glory After “Miracle” Crash

Paralympic silver medallist Monique van der Vorst has miraculously become an able-bodied Olympic hopeful after a crash reversed her paralysis.

Paralysed from the hip down since she was 13, the 27-year-old handcyclist was hit by a bicycle last year while training in her wheelchair for the 2012 London Paralympics.

While recovering from the trauma, van der Vorst's feet started to tingle and miraculously she began to move them again.

She said she would never forget the moment she took her first steps again after months of rehabilitation.

[Monique van der Vorst, Paralympic Medallist]:
"I felt really, really happy, I felt like a child that learned to walk again, with falling and standing up and then you fall again."

"I really fell more than a hundred times and then that moment when you are able to walk, it's indescribable. I wanted to jump and jump and then I lay down on the ground, but it's beautiful."

Doctors have no explanation for her amazing recovery.

Some believe the trauma of her last accident may have jolted her body back into activity.

But the realities of her new-found joy also put an immediate end to her career as a paralympian.

Van der Vorst has just signed with the Rabobank women's professional cycling team to start competing as a top-class able-bodied athlete.

[Monique van der Vorst, Paralympic Medallist]:
"In my heart I am an athlete and my body is not at that level yet. But I've got an opportunity to develop myself as an able-bodied athlete and it's just good to be in a big cycling team where everything is professional.”

Considering van der Vorst won silver at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, was Dutch disabled athlete of the year in 2009, and was the first handcycle athlete to win the 2009 Ironman world championship in Hawaii, her goal of riding in the 2016 Rio Olympics isn’t that unrealistic.