"The biggest change I would love to see is to break the barriers of having this, we call it in German, Beruhrungsangst, being afraid to come too close," Popow told DW. "The way that kids interact with people with a disability, and also with stuff they see for the first time. That is what I would like to see adults do."
"So when I, for example, go to Kindergarten with shorts in the summer, I'm the coolest daddy in the world because kids accept me. And then they ask me, 'What do you have?' So I explain. And because my two daughters, they always put some new stickers on my legs, every day I have a different leg."
"Sports gave me the opportunity to push barriers and limits," said Popow. And it still does. Heinrich Popow won gold at the London 2012 Olympics and has also seen long jump success.
One of Germany's greatest para athletes Popow maintains that the amputation of his lower leg was tougher on his parents than on his 9-year-old self. He stayed active in sports, and eventually settled on athletics at the sports club, Bayer Leverkusen.
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