Lance Armstrong wasn't the only American athlete making history this month in France. Sprinter Marlon Shirley blew away the competition too, without a bike.

In fact, he did it without a leg.

After breaking his own world record in the 100 meters last week at the International Paralympic Committee's World Track and Field Championships, Shirley paid a visit to The Magazine's offices Tuesday. He's come a long way. Abandoned by his birth mother at the age of three, Shirley lived on the streets of Las Vegas before being taken in by a foster-care family. When he was five, he lost his left foot after slipping in front of a lawnmower -- he now has a prosthetic left leg below the knee.

"I'm basically running on a very well-designed flat tire," Shirley says.

But that hasn't slowed him down. In the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, Australia, Shirley shattered the existing world record in the 100 meters by almost an entire half-second (his current record is 11.08 seconds). Last year he injured his knee and broke both arms in a horse-riding accident, but now he's back on record-breaking track.

For the past four months, Shirley, 24, has been at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., with lofty goals in mind. On the verge of becoming the first leg amputee to break the 11-second barrier in the 100 meters, Shirley is aiming to get into races with the top able-bodied sprinters in the world and qualify for the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials.

"I see myself competing with Maurice Greene and those guys over the next three years," Shirley says. "But I'm just racing that Timex clock now."

Don't count him out. Dan O'Brien, the former world champion decathlete, beat Shirley by just a hundredth of a second in a 55-meter dash. Plus Shirley also owns the paralympic world record in the long jump -- and a 41.5-inch vertical!

Shirley is also trying to get the word out about his sport, which he feels does not get the respect it deserves. But he doesn't feel angry about all that he's been through.

"I never wish things were different," Shirley says. "I didn't realize what I had in front of me, that I could go a lot farther in life that I actually thought I could."

A lot faster, too.

E-mail Kieran Darcy at kieran.d.darcy@espn.com.