Tips Clear News Portal Your Ultimate Guide to Clear Tips on Life, Tech, Health, and More Every four years there are the Olympic Games, so far I’m not surprising anyone, but a few weeks after this meeting that everyone is waiting for, there is an appointment that everyone doesn’t give a damn about: the Paralympic Games . There have been legends of Paralympic sport, people who sometimes outperformed able-bodied athletes. Too bad the valid ones in fact.
1. Ibrahim Hamadou, first man to play table tennis with his mouth and foot
You have two arms and two legs and you have a hard time catching a ball that is thrown at you even if you are told beforehand “watch out Ferdinand, I’ll give you the pass”. It’s hot for you, and Ibrahim Hamadou is certainly not part of your team of nullos because he can play tennis without arms and with his mouth.
It was following a train accident that the Egyptian athlete lost both his arms. He was initially interested in football, but aware of the danger that this sport represented for him (if he fell he would not nothing to cushion his fall), he turns to table tennis. After three years of learning, he manages to master his sport and even qualifies for the 2016 Paralympic Games. He does not win a medal, but is the only African table tennis player to compete and reaps a lot of admiration from the public. and its opponents.
2. Nantenin Keïta, daughter of the famous musician Salif Keïta
If you don’t know Salif Keïta, know that you disappoint me greatly and I advise you to listen to his beautiful music right away. Then, you should know that his daughter Nantenin Keïta, is an athlete specializing in the 400m. Suffering from a severe visual impairment due to her albinism (like her father), she competes in disabled sports. French record holder, bronze medalist in the 100m at the 2012 Olympic Games and 400m medalist at the 2016 Summer Paralympic Games in Rio, Nantenin Keita, in addition to being the daughter of a great artist, is one of the most great athletes of his time.
3. Trischa Zorn, one of the most successful swimmers in the history of the Olympic Games
Blind from birth, the American swimmer marked the history of the Paralympic Games by participating 7 times, and by winning no less than 10 individual medals and 2 as a team at the Games in Seoul in 1988. During her career Trischa Zorn won 50 medals including 41 gold.
4. Jonas Jacobsson, the best disabled shooter in the world
Jonas Jacobsson suffers from paralysis of the pelvis, but that does not prevent him from having won around thirty medals between 1980 and 2012 (including 17 silver). He is therefore a legend of disabled sport and an example for many. He also received the highest distinction for a Swedish athlete (his country of origin): a gold medal Svenska Dagbadet, hat.
5. Abdellatif Baka was faster than able-bodied athletes at the 2016 Olympics
The visually impaired Algerian middle-distance runner Abdellatif Baka surprised everyone in 2016 by setting a better time in the 1500m than Matthew Centrowitz Jr, an able-bodied athlete who won the 1500m, the same year over the same distance. Indeed, the Algerian had achieved the time of 3:48.29, when the American had won his final in 3:50.00. He had already won the 800m final at the London Olympics in 2012. His record propelled the athlete into the legends of disabled sport, and he will most certainly remain there for a little while longer.
6. Daniel Dias is just the most decorated Olympic swimmer of all time
The Brazilian, Daniel Dias was born without hands and without feet, and decided to start swimming at the age of 16, inspired by the disabled swimmer Clodoaldo Silva. And it is that the kid had a hollow nose since he became world champion in disabled swimming by winning 11 gold medals in Durban in 2006 and Eindhoven in 2010. For the Paralympic Games, he counted 24 medals won in Beijing , London and Rio and thus became the most successful swimmer in history.
7. Achmat Hassiem, a disabled swimmer who lost his leg to a shark
I’ll stop you right away, no sharks are not dangerous for humans, we are moreover more deadly towards them since we kill them en masse to make fin soup. Nevertheless the legend of the guy who goes too far offshore and has to be eaten by a shark is sometimes true. This is the case of Achmat Hassiem who lost his leg following a shark bite while training in Cape Town. In 2006, the athlete testified in the newspaper l’Equipe: “First, I saw my leg in the gaping jaws of the shark, then it shook me in all directions. It was when he started pulling me down that I started to get scared. It is therefore this story that has made much of the notoriety of the swimmer, who by the way, is a great defender of white sharks and ocean conservation and realizes that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. .
8. Beatrice Hess, the French torpedo
I can already see the old jokes on her last name “yeah Béatrice, isn’t that hess too much?? “, but let’s move on. Suffering from cerebral palsy, the young Hess stood out for her performance at the Sydney Games in 2000, where she set nine world records, just that. In her career, she accumulates 20 gold medals at the Olympic Games and it’s not nothing (not so much the hess finally, lol).
9. Lee Pearson, one of the greatest riders of his time
Already being a rider is classy, so being a rider when you suffer from Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita is even more classy. And now that you have panicked in front of this name of disease which surely held all your breath, I will try to explain to you what it is. It is actually a congenital joint limitation that causes great stiffness in the joints. All that to say that Pearson has competed in four editions of the Olympic Games (Sydney, Athens, Beijing and London), that he has been world champion 14 times, but that he also has 14 Paralympic medals, which he knows how to open beers with his teeth while remaining classy, and that he manages to lick his elbow perfectly. What a man.
10. Oscar Pistorius, the only guy in this top known for the wrong reasons
And we end with a very creepy story, that of Oscar Pistorius. I’m sure you’ve heard of this guy before and if so, it’s not for disabled sports, but for his wife’s murder case…
Before that, Pistorius was born without fibulae and had to be amputated just below both knees at birth. He started athletics in his teens, and later became the first amputee to qualify for the athletics events for the Olympic Games in 2012. He is also the first disabled athlete to win a medal (in a team) among the able-bodied. during the Daegu Worlds in 2011. In short, he had highlighted disabled sport for the right reasons before becoming the murderer we know today.