| Media Note Office of the Spokesman Washington, DC August 21, 2007 Amputee Bicyclist Successfully Crosses United States During Global Trek to Support Landmine SurvivorsTwo and half months after leaving Washington, D.C., Daniel Sheret, an endurance bicyclist and amputee, successfully bicycled 4,120 miles (6629 kilometers) across 13 states, reaching San Francisco, California, on August 16. Thus ended the first stage of his epic around-the-world “Ability Trek 2007” tour to raise funds for amputees who have been maimed by landmines and other mishaps, and to raise awareness of the global landmine problem.
Sheret’s efforts are benefiting Clear Path International (www.cpi.org/index.php), a non-governmental organization assisting survivors of landmines and explosive remnants of war in Southeast Asia. Funds raised will also go to the Iraq Prosthetic Center in Basra to treat amputees in southern Iraq. Both initiatives are supported in part by the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. (See earlier Media Note at www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/may/85832.htm.) Mr. Sheret contended with extreme heat, rain, violent storms, and steep hills and mountains bicycling through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California. The generosity of Americans that he met along the way, an appearance on CNN's “Larry King Live” interview program, and some good weather compensated for those challenges. After Sheret recuperates from his trans-continental bike trek, on September 13, 2007 he will fly to Ireland and tour the British Isles, then proceed to Western Europe, the Balkans, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, India, Nepal, China, South East Asia, and Japan, returning to the United States in 2008. To learn more about Daniel Sheret’s “Ability Trek 2007” and to follow his daily blog, visit www.abilitytrek.org/. To learn more about the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement’s humanitarian mine action and small arms/light weapons destruction activities, and its program to encourage civil society participation in making the world free from the humanitarian impact of landmines, visit www.state.gov/t/pm/wra and also examine that Office’s “Safe Passage” newsletters at www.state.gov/t/pm/wra/c10648.htm. 2007/710 |
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