attempt was unsuccessful. 'I felt there was no purpose when you lack porpuse and strength.It is harder to hold on,' he said. But with the help of the religion, friends and family, Nick managed to pull through to become an intenational symbol of triumph over adversity.

'When I why 13, I read a newspeaper article about a disable man who had managed to achive great things and helped others, ',said Nick.

'I realised why God had made us like this - to give hope to othres. It was so inspirational to me that I dicided to use my to encourage other people and give them the courage thst the article had given me.'

'I dicided to thankful for what I do have, not get angry about what I dont't.

'I looked at my self in the mirror and said :'You know what the world is right that I have no arms or legs, but they'll never take away the away the beauty of my eye.' I wanted to concentrate on something good that i had.'

"The challenges in our lives are there ti strengthen our convictios. They are not there to run us over" , said N8ck. In 1990 Nick won the Australian Yong Citizen of the year award for his barvory and perseverance.

'And once I was in a car and a girl at traffic lights was looking at me intrestingly. she could only see my head so I dicided to do a 360 degree spin in the car seat to freak her out.Her face was like wooooooah what is going on? she sped off really quickly.'

Nick began travelling the world and 2008 he went to Hawaii and met surfing master Bethany Hamilton, who had her arm bitten off a shark when she was 12.

'She was amazing,' said Nick.'She thaught me how to surf and I was terrified at first, but once I got up there it felt absolutely fantastic and I caught some waves pretty well.' Nick quickly learned how to do the 360 degree spin on his board - a feat that got him on the cover of Surfer magazine within 48 hours. 'No one has to ever done that in the history of surfing,' he said. 'But I have a very low center of gravity so I've got pretty good balance.'