John Maclean is an extraordinary achiever. This book is a wonderful life story that happens to feature sport, not a sports book.In 1988 the gifted natural athlete was near to achieving his dream of becoming a professional sportsman when, out training, he was hit by a truck. He awoke from a coma paraplegic. His reaction: He was lucky; he could still use his arms. Still in hospital he started training again, eventually deciding he would tackle physical challenges no other wheelchair athlete had successfully taken on. Cut to 1995: John becomes the first such athlete to finish to gruelling Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon?with a 3.8km ocean swim, a 180km cycle leg and a 42.2km running course, it is unequalled in toughness. But he didn?t make the able-bodied cut-off time, and simply finishing the event was no longer enough.Back the next year, he completed the course, but a wheelchair flat tyre saw him again miss the cut-off time. In 1997 he finally triumphed?and beat a third of the elite able-bodied field in the process. He is now in the Hawaiian Ironman Hall of Fame.More astonishing feats followed?becoming the first wheelchair athlete to swim the English Channel, completing the Sydney-Hobart yacht race, etc etc. The year 2000 saw him competing in front of a 115,000+ home-crowd in the Sydney Olympics, where wheelchair racing was a demonstration sport. But at this moment of greatest triumph, he crashed.Only the harsh but loving advice of mentor Morrie Rainer, who was dying of cancer, got through to him: ?The best thing that ever happened to you was getting hit by a truck. The second best was crashing in the Olympics.? Having looked deeply enough within himself to understand what Morrie meant, John decided to reach out to others. His John Maclean Foundation now helps children all over Australia who are in wheelchairs achieve their dreams?whatever they may be.His story is full of drama, fierce determination, heartbreak and triumph, and it will touch readers in the same way Lance Armstrong?s It?s Not About the Bike has done.