60 Minutes: July 12

This Sunday on 60 Minutes, Hamish Blake and Cadel Evan join cyclists through the Italian Alps.

Sounds like a great ad for SBS with Tour de France… but there is a higher purpose to it.

Seeing is Believing
Sometimes you’ve just got to marvel at the brilliance of technology and the ingenuity of the minds behind it. In one of the greatest scientific advances ever, doctors and engineers have developed the bionic eye. Giving the miracle of sight to the blind is now a reality. Although the technology is in its early stages, it is already changing lives. People who have been completely blind for decades are now able to distinguish shapes, light and movement. This Sunday 60 Minutes is there as a bionic eye is switched on the first time, and a man who’s been blind for 30 years, gets to see his grandchildren for the first time.
Reporter: Allison Langdon
Producer: Laura Sparkes

Race for Life
This Sunday, four Australian heroes will compete in the toughest amateur cycling race in the world. Alongside them will be comedian Hamish Blake, and Tour de France champion Cadel Evans. Together they’ll cycle the equivalent of eight vertical kilometres in three days, as they climb through the Italian Alps. These men and women bravely served their country in wars and other conflicts, but in doing so developed an awful condition which has no definitive treatment or cure. So perhaps even more bravely, they are now hoping to fight their way back, healing themselves by surviving one of the most demanding feats of endurance.
Reporter: Liz Hayes
Producers: Gareth Harvey, Ali Smith

Charlie’s Fightback
For 50 years Charlie Phillott and his family worked the land on Carisbrook Station in outback Queensland. They enjoyed the good seasons and endured the bad. They learnt to save when they could and spend when they had to, but they always kept the bank manager happy. That is until the ANZ came along. Overnight the bank crippled Charlie’s business and hounded him into financial oblivion. A year ago the Phillotts were forced to walk away from Carisbrook, bullied by the bank into leaving their home. But don’t think the bank has won, because Charlie Phillott is no pushover and he’s taking his fight all the way to the top of one of Australia’s largest financial institutions.
Reporter: Michael Usher
Producer: Grace Tobin

Sunday at 8.30pm on Nine.