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ISTRES, France (AFP) - Blind Belgian daredevil Luc Costermans won a world record Saturday when he hit 308.78 kilometres (192 miles) per hour driving a Lamborghini Gallardo supercar on a French airstrip.
The 43-year-old, who was blinded in an accident four years ago, hit the top speed twice in the borrowed car at the Istres airbase in southern France.
Costermans thanked his co-pilot Guillaume Roman, the air force and his sponsors, and dedicated his record to the Formula 1 driver Philippe Streiff, who has been a tetraplegic since an accident in the 1989 Brasil Grand Prix.
The blind road speed record was previously held by Britain's Mike Newman, who hit 268 kilometres per hour in October 2005 in a modified BMW M5.

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The rights of disabled people is an issue which has been at the heart of many meetings held by the Egyptian National Commission on Human Rights which I have the honour to preside. In accordance with the importance we attach to the subject, we have published our annual report on the protection of human rights in Egypt in Braille, and we are planning to hold a meeting with non-sighted people in the next few months, in order to listen to their feedback on this document. Your plan to launch an Internet site, (www.ehandicapworldrecords.org) dedicated to the achievements of disabled people throughout the world, is therefore of the utmost interest to us in our efforts to help the disabled. In the name of the Egyptian National Commission on Human Rights, and on my own behalf, I would like to congratulate you and to thank you for this magnificent initiative.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali
Former Secretary General of the United Nations
President of the Egyptian National Commission on Human Rights

A faux-pas cost him his legs, but his passion for life and his love of the mountains pushed him to the summit of Mont Blanc, standing on an artificial foot and supported by crutches.

A well-known engineer and accomplished sportsman, Jean-Yves Le Meur tells the story of his rebirth and his impossible climb with detachment, sensitivity, intelligence and humour. A far-reaching testimony to one’s ability to surpass and rebuild oneself. Deeply moving.

Barely escaping from a situation close to death, Jean-Yves Le Meur lost his right leg and his left foot in an awful, and stupid, train accident at the age of 19. His return to the world was physical and moral torture, but the young man had a horizon in view : the mountains which were sketched in the window-frame. For him, to “come back” meant nothing : his “life project” was to reach the summit of Mont Blanc standing upright. Crutches in hand, weightless on two artificial legs, he would manage this a few years later, explaining that this “first” was neither a challenge nor a battle, but the fulfilment of an irrepressible impulse based on a whim : it can’t be done ! The horizontal journey of a bedridden young man who confronted insane trials with skin-deep sensitivity, became the path of a man trained for the highest of mountains.

Throughout the encounters and portrayals, and in transcribing the most extreme of emotions, the story of this Faux Pas bears testimony to the keeping of a promise, with passion, the passion to live.