{"id":97,"date":"2016-06-21T10:40:56","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T10:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/06\/21\/petra-hurtova-superhero\/"},"modified":"2017-02-14T14:59:08","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T14:59:08","slug":"petra-hurtova-superhero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/06\/21\/petra-hurtova-superhero\/","title":{"rendered":"The Superhero: She Made It Against All Odds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>She may not be able to walk, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the thirty- year-old Petra Hurtov\u00e1 from embracing her passion for cycling. Using a specially designed bike that allows her to pedal with her hands, Petra rides almost every day. With the smile never slipping from her face, Petra is the epitome of women\u2019s love for cycling.<\/strong><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=My8u7D8_oWs<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare condition also known as brittle bone disease. To have brittle bones actually means to have brittle life as well. When I was younger, the bones would break all the time. All it took was hitting something a bit harder and there it was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-188\" src=\"http:\/\/skoda-tdf.s3.amazonaws.com\/2\/2016\/06\/AG9C6335_1.jpg\" alt=\"\u201cI was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare condition also known as brittle bone disease. To have brittle bones actually means to have brittle life as well. When I was younger, the bones would break all the time. All it took was hitting something a bit harder and there it was.\u201d\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Till this day Petra has suffered over 60 fractures, and because of her condition, she also had to have over 60 major surgeries to get fit again. But that didn\u2019t discourage her from a life full of sport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI always fight. It is a sort of fight with my own life. Some days I really don\u2019t know how to continue, but I have never thought of giving up.\u201d\u00a0After giving birth to her healthy son Viktor, who according to the doctors wasn\u2019t going to be even conceived, the natural hormonal changes in Petra\u2019s body somewhat strengthened her skeleton. The indomitable lady didn\u2019t hesitate long and made the most of it.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-187\" src=\"http:\/\/skoda-tdf.s3.amazonaws.com\/2\/2016\/06\/AG9C6332_1.jpg\" alt=\"\u201cI always fight. It is a sort of fight with my own life. Some days I really don\u2019t know how to continue, but I have never thought of giving up.\u201d After giving birth to her healthy son Viktor, who according to the doctors wasn\u2019t going to be even conceived, the natural hormonal changes in Petra\u2019s body somewhat strengthened her skeleton. The indomitable lady didn\u2019t hesitate long and made the most of it.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Petra decided she wanted to get further than her wheelchair allowed her, so naturally she chose a handbike. It took two years before she was able to get her own, but it seems to be one of the best decisions she ever made.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe handbike means freedom. It\u2019s as simple as that,\u201d she says.\u00a0Petra fell in love with the community around handbikes, and she soon found herself on the start of her first cycling race. So far she has won the Czech cup three times and has become national champion three times as well.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-189\" src=\"http:\/\/skoda-tdf.s3.amazonaws.com\/2\/2016\/06\/AG9C6338_1.jpg\" alt=\"\u201cThe handbike means freedom. It\u2019s as simple as that,\u201d she says. Petra fell in love with the community around handbikes, and she soon found herself on the start of her first cycling race. So far she has won the Czech cup three times and has become national champion three times as well.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s important to say that when a person has a handicap, they are not ill or sick. They just have a handicap and it\u2019s up to them how they will cope with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Petra averages around 120 kilometers on handbike every week. In addition she swims and works out in the gym. She even climbed the top of Dachstein, more than 2,000-meter ascent in the Austrian Alps.\u00a0Maybe we\u2019ll see her at the Paralympics one day? That would be the ideal highlight of her inspirational journey. Do you know an inspirational story? Please submit it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/tour-de-france\/wide\/velo-family-story\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>She may not be able to walk, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the thirty- year-old Petra Hurtov\u00e1 from embracing her passion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":146547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[845,846,433,844],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-tdf","tag-tdf-2016","tag-tour-de-france","tag-tour-de-france-2016"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Superhero: She Made It Against All Odds - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"She may not be able to walk, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the thirty- year-old Petra Hurtov\u00e1 from embracing her passion for cycling. 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