Tenacious Z: Rami Zur Profile

Days after Rami Zur placed 10th in the K-1 500-meter flat water sprint at his second Olympic Games in Athens, he dove into the shallow end of his hotel pool and broke his neck. The injury threatened to paralyze him and required a surgery that fused his C5 and C6 vertebrae. Five weeks after the surgery, however, he was back in the water. Three months after that he battled the notoriously high winds and large swells of Hawaii’s Molokai Channel and finished the crossing. Now, nearly four years later, the 31-year-old hopes to apply this type of tenacity to bring the U.S. a medal in the K-1 500-meter race. Click for story