Mon. Sep 25th, 2023

Motivator

Inspiring Stories of Disabled Teens Who Won Paralympic Games

4 years ago Carrie

Having physical limitations is not an obstacle to get achievement and work. Five teenagers with disabilities can prove it.

They can achieve extraordinary achievements that even ordinary people find it challenging to achieve. The following summarizes five outstanding disabled teenagers who inspired many people:

 

Kayla Wheeler

Reported by ABC News, 16-year-old Wheeler was born without legs and only had one arm. But all the physical limitations she has, do not dampen her enthusiasm for achievement. She was also chosen to represent the US in the 2013 Paralympic Swimming World Championship.

Her passion for swimming began when she was eight months old. Because she was born without arms and legs, she was recommended by doctors to practice body balance by swimming.

Since then, Wheeler has continued to hone her limitations and has participated in various swimming competitions such as the Can-Am Para-Swimming championship, the world championship in the Netherlands. She also won a paralympic qualification in North Dakota 2012 and this allowed her to take part in the 2013 Paralympic Swimming World Championship.

The best achievement she won was to win bronze in the Rio de Janeiro world championship. If you also want to be a world champion like Wheeler and win golden medal, you can start to practice swim faster and participate in local swim tournament.

 

Jessica Long

The 25-year-old Russian-born woman is an adopted child. Long was born with disabilities without ankles, heels, and most of the bones in her legs.

Long is a swimming athlete. Before becoming a swimmer, Long had tried other sports such as gymnastics, basketball, cycling, to cheerleading. She later found her passion for swimming and has since participated in various championships and carved achievements such as the Athens 2004 Paralympic games; she won 3 gold medals and the IPC (International Paralympic Committee) world swimming championship in Durban, South Africa.

Long was also the winner of the 77th AAU James Sullivan Award three times (2007, 2012, and 2013), won the award of the best female athlete with disabilities from ESPN, and bears the swimmers of women with disabilities of the year from Swimming World Magazine.

 

Chelsea McClammer

Quoted from Team USA, this 23-year-old woman had an accident at the age of 6 years. The accident made her back unable to stand up straight since then she could not walk and had to sit in a wheelchair. Feeling not allowed to give up so easily, she rose and became a wheelchair racer.

McClammer has participated in various championships such as the 2008 and 2016 Paralympic Games, in Beijing, China, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, she became the youngest wheelchair athlete from the US. The best achievement she has ever carved is to win two silver and one bronze at the 2008 and 2016 Paralympic games.

 

Anthony Robles

Robles is a wrestler who was born with one leg but refused to use prosthetic limbs. He refused all forms of outside assistance and chose to accept the conditions as they are.

He began practicing his maneuverability at the age of 3 and sharpened his body to become stronger. At the age of 6, he proved it by becoming the most push-up record holder in his school.

He started wrestling since he was eight years old because his cousin inspired him. In high school, Robles won two wrestling championships with a fantastic score of 96-0. He never lost at all, apart from his body being deformed.

The best achievement he has ever achieved is winning the NCAA Wrestling Championships professional wrestling competition 2010-2011, he became the best to beat all opponents who have a normal body.

League of Legends Player Play Very Well Despite not Having any Hands

4 years ago Carrie

This is Peng Chao from China. He is just an ordinary teenager aged 19 years and a fan of the game League of Legends.

One unusual thing is, it doesn’t have arms, but it might be a better gamer than you.

This is indeed, not the first time that gamers with disabilities have done extraordinary things. But this Peng Chao story is worth listening to.

When Peng Chao was six years old, he played outside with his friend. They played too close to high voltage power lines, and Peng Chao was finally hit by an electric shock that threatened his life. After five operations, the doctor was able to save his life – but both arms had to be amputated. Despite this difficulty, Peng Chao learned to do everything with his feet: eat, drink, study, and even play games.

And for gaming, Peng Chao played pretty well. In the League of Legends game, he is currently ranked Gold, which has become an achievement for many gamers. But when his classmates discuss this, Peng Chao usually responds with: “There is still Diamond above Gold.”

Nobody can stop him or criticize him. He has even become like a legend in his class in terms of playing LOL and in looking at life positively.
Recently, Peng Chao was busy with a college entrance exam (Gaokao), where he managed to get a high enough 538 (considering he wrote essays with his feet). We hope to meet him in the future when he reaches Diamond.

If he can do many things, why can’t we?

And you know, that there are unique charitable organizations, where they pay attention to people with disabilities, such as Peng Chao.

This organization originated from the United Kingdom under the name SpecialEffect. They are here to help sufferers of physical disorders to get a better quality of life. What are they doing? Helping people with physical impairments who are mostly children to play games.

One way SpecialEffect can do to help those in need is to make them able to play games using a controller that is made just for them. They will be researched on what special needs they need to be able to play the game, then SpecialEffect will specially design the controller that they will use to play the game.

Special Effect itself is arguably a small organization because eleven people only manage it. Also, the organization that was established since 2007 has been increasingly visited since video games have become something that children with physical disabilities want. Initially, this organization started its activities not without difficulties, but with good effort and determination, SpecialEffect began to be known in video game communities. The Schafer Team (Secret of Monkey Island) also supports through its donation at Gambitious.

Seeing this can be done in developed countries such as the United Kingdom, it might be somewhat difficult if the same activities can be done in developing Asian countries, especially in Indonesia. Although awareness of equality between people with physical disabilities and the general public is growing, these sufferers are still often underestimated. This is indeed reasonable considering the economic, social, and technological conditions in Indonesia itself are not as advanced as in other developed countries.

So far, I have never found a similar organization in Indonesia that specifically helps people with disabilities to play games. But if this can also be realized here, isn’t that an extraordinary thing? Games for everyone!

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