The BBC Video of Kayode and Christiana, a girl in her 20s, who plays tennis with bathroom slippers as racquets

They’re also the stars of a delightful BBC video released at the start of the games. “She’s my woman,” says Kayode as they play a match. Christiana says that she can beat him on a daily basis. Kayode uses a cane. Christiana uses a wheelchair.

From an early age she was drawn to the sport. “I loved it, even when I was very little She said that she used to play on the street. “There was no table tennis table in my village. I remember when I was 7 we used wooden benches on the street. We played with golf balls using bathroom slippers as racquets. I didn’t know that I could make a living doing it.

Lion King and the Israeli Paralympian Anne Wafula Strike: Sport for Disable Children in Low-Income Countries

The couple went to Paris with the hope of medaling. Kayode is nicknamed the “Lion King” for his aggressive style of playing and believes that he can be the No.1 in the world. But their medal dream did not come true.

Paralympic athletes past and present who survived childhood polio infections often strive to bring awareness to the importance of vaccination and to share insights into their lives as polio survivors. It’s a disease that has been eliminated in the vast majority of the world’s countries due to vaccines but persists in such countries as Afghanistan and Pakistan and has just resurfaced in Gaza.

Paralympian wheelchair racer and Disability advocate Anne Wafula Strike contracted the disease when she was a child. She says that her family had to flee their village because neighbors believed she was cursed. “They tried to burn down my dad’s mud hut,” Strike tells NPR, “We were ostracized for fear that what I had would be passed to other children.”

Strike was able to attend a boarding school for children who have disabilities. She said that she felt at home immediately after entering the school’s gates. “Do you know why? We were all the same, that’s why. We didn’t look at each other.

Reflecting on her own life, she adds: “Sport was a blessing in disguise because, when I was in Africa, I never really played sports as a disabled young woman because that was not something that was available to me.”

I mentor athletes in low-income countries around the world. We are establishing an academy where people from low-income countries can find opportunities to compete at the highest level in their sport.