Raising an Olympian: Ben Rushgrove

By Kim Hookem-Smith | Yahoo Lifestyle

For Alison Rushgrove, sending her son, Ben, away to school at age 10 was the hardest decision she ever had to make. But it gave him the opportunity to become a world-class athlete. The British runner, who has cerebral palsy, will be going for gold at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.

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"When you have a disabled child you have no idea what's going to become of them," explains Alison. "You tend to err on the side that life's not going to be that great. But he was always a fighter, always determined."

Wanting to give her son the best possible chance of doing well, Rushgrove and her family made the difficult decision to send him away to a specialist school. "We knew he was bright and we knew he wasn't thriving in mainstream education," says, and admits it was a heart-wrenching moment when Ben needed to be physical restrained as his family left him at the school."How I got home that day, I don't know. I cried for the whole two-and-three quarter-hour journey." Once settled, Ben excelled at school, especially when he became serious about athletics at 16. "That was when my weekends changed," says the dedicated mom.

When Ben Rushgrove went to 2010 Beijing Paralympics, he had a serious problem to contend with. Just 10 days before he the trip, he broke his foot. "I was so worried. When I saw him on TV, I was trying to read his body language," remembers Alison Rushrove. "But he looked 'round the stadium and smiled and that's when I knew he'd give it his all."

Despite the odds, Ben walked away with a silver medal in the 100m. This year, her son has a clean bill of health. Here's hoping he'll go one step further this year.

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