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Outlook

Factual: Life Stories

True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives.

Outlook: 29/03/2011

29/03/2011

BBC World Service - Outlook, 29/03/2011

The Olympic Gold medal rower James Cracknell on the brain injury that nearly killed him.

JAMES CRACKNELL
James Cracknell is one of Britain's most famous athletes. He won two Olympic gold medals for rowing, and six World Championship titles.  Since retiring from competitive rowing in 2006, he's set himself a series of epic endurance tests. He rowed across the Atlantic and then took on the Marathon des Sables, seven marathons in six days in the searing heat of the Sahara Desert.  Last year whilst attempting a new world record for running, cycling, rowing and swimming across the United States he suffered a near-fatal accident when he was hit from behind by the wing mirror of an oil tanker, leaving him with a fractured skull and brain damage. He tells Matthew Bannister about the impact the accident has had on his life. 

BOLIVIAN JUGGLING
When John Connell took a juggling workshop at his American High School, he didn't think that it would lead to a way out of poverty for hundreds of children in Bolivia. But, that's exactly what has happened.  When he left school, John visited Bolivia.  When he was working in Cochabamba, he came up with the idea of teaching juggling and circus skills to street children - thus allowing them to earn more money and freeing them to go to school.  For Outlook, Mattia Cabitza went to meet John and some of his young students as they practised their juggling skills.

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