Interesting Photos: Japanese sprinter goes naked to raise funds for paralympics

Takao Ochi

This is an amazing story of determination! Japanese runner Maya Nakanishi could not get the money she needed from sponsors to go to London Paralympics in 2014 so she decided to take extreme measures: make a sensual portrait and sell the pictures as calendars.

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Now before criticizing try to see how brave and determined she had to be to go that far on the pursuit of her career. If you learn some of her story you might start to get how hard things are for her. Still very young she lost her leg to an accident at work, when a heavy structure fell on her. With new prosthetic leg she had difficult times but prevailed, becoming one of the best runners in Asia on her category. She was the first Japanese to get to the finals and still holds some records.

Takao Ochi

In February she produced 7,000 copies of the calendar and sells them for 1,200 yen, or almost US$ 30.

Many crytics rushed to judge her and some even said she embarrassed people with prosthetic limbs. I happen to desagree with them, feeling much more comfortable with Maya’s words: