Joao Silva, photographer who lost legs on the job

New York City Marathon Joao Silva, Joao Silva, Wounded New York Times Photographer, Finishes New York City Marathon . Joao Silva, the New York Times photographer who lost both his legs on the job, completed the New York City marathon on Sunday.

Silva lost both his legs when he stepped on a mine in Afghanistan last October. He chronicled the experience, which also destroyed his urethra, and his recovery at Walter Reed in a recent piece for the Times.

Silva, who raced in the handcycling division, did the marathon in less than three hours — faster than he had been anticipating. He had planned on taking pictures along the way, but he told the newspaper that he turned his focus to racing after crossing the Verrazano Bridge. He said, “I realized that if I was going to take more pictures, I was never going to finish this race.”

Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya crosses the finish line to win the ING New York City Marathon November 6, 2011 in New York. Mutai, the 2011 Boston Marathon winner, won the men’s New York Marathon in an unofficial time of two hours, five minutes and five seconds to smash the course record on Sunday. Mutai smashed the old mark of 2:07:43 set by Ethiopia’s Tesfaye Jifar in 2001 to defeat runner-up Emmanuel Mutai, the reigning London Marathon champion.