Gold Medalist Nick Scandone in NBC Documentary

by Marini Lane on 5 Nov 2008 Celebrated sailor Nick Scandone (Newport Beach, Calif.), who won a gold medal with teammate Maureen McKinnon-Tucker (Marblehead, Mass.) in the SKUD-18 class at the 2008 Paralympic Sailing Regatta in Qingdao, China, will be profiled in a documentary airing on NBC on Sunday, November 9 at 2:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. PT. (Please check local listings.)

Narrated by NBC Sports' Bob Costas, this 90-minute documentary will feature eight Paralympic athletes, including Scandone, as well as the Men’s Wheelchair Basketball Team.

The documentary kicks off an unprecedented 28 hours of Paralympic event programming on Universal Sports, beginning November 10. For more information on the schedule, events covered, video highlights, feature articles and photo galleries, please visit: UniversalSports.com.

Scandone and McKinnon-Tucker proved to be an unstoppable force in the double-handed SKUD-18 fleet in China, clinching the gold medal one day early and with two races left to go. Both first-time Paralympians, their win was also the first time the U.S. Paralympic Sailing Team has won a gold medal in the history of the Games.

For Scandone, this gold medal was everything he dreamed of and worked hard to achieve. He suffers from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a neurodegenerative disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Named the 2005 US SAILING Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, Scandone is no stranger to high-level, international competition, and has been celebrated as an exceptional sailor -- before he was diagnosed with ALS, and even more impressively, after.

Scandone overcame overwhelming obstacles to compete at the 2008 Paralympic Games, and his efforts paid off with a coveted gold medal.

For more information and background on Nick Scandone, please read his bio on the US SAILING web site:

http://olympics.ussailing.org/The_Team/Nick_Scandone.htm

For more news, results, photos and blogs from the Paralympic Regatta, please visit:

http://olympics.ussailing.org/Olympics.htm