7 Paralympians you should know about
From sitting volleyball players to powerlifters, here are just a few of the athletes competing in Paris
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Following the spectacular closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics, the city is hosting more of the world’s elite athletes at the Paralympic Games. The event kicked off with a bang on 28 August and, in less than a week, China, Great Britain and the US have claimed their places at the top of the leaderboard. As more medals are won and more records broken, Hyphen takes a look at some of the most exciting competitors.
Zakia Khudadadi
Zakia Khudadadi made history on the first day of the games, when she became the first ever athlete representing the Refugee Paralympic Team to win a medal, fighting her way to a bronze in taekwondo.
Khudadadi, who was born without one forearm, was inspired to take up the sport by taekwondo star Rohullah Nikpai, Afghanistan’s first and only Olympic medalist. Khudadadi represented the country at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021, just weeks after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. To get there she went into hiding after the fall of Kabul and left on an evacuation flight. The ban on Afghan women’s participation in sports forced her to seek asylum in France, where she now lives and trains.
After winning her medal, Khudadadi said: “I went through so much to get here. This medal is for all the women of Afghanistan and all the refugees of the world. I hope that one day there will be peace in my country.”
Abdi Jama
Abdi Jama, a wheelchair basketball player from Toxteth in Liverpool, is representing ParalympicsGB for the fifth time, having previously scored bronze medals in the games in Beijing in 2008, Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021.
Jama was born in Somalia and moved to Liverpool with his family as a child to escape the country’s civil war. He had hoped to make a career in football playing for local team Everton, but a fall from a window aged 14 left him paralysed. He was then introduced to wheelchair basketball by his friend and fellow Paralympian, Ade Orogbemi.
“The biggest thing for me is to bring that gold medal back home. We’ve come so close, but I think this is the year we’re going to do it,” he told the Liverpool Echo ahead of the games.
Hakim Arezki
Algerian-born defender and midfielder Hakim Arezki was on France’s silver-medal-winning blind football team at the London Paralympics in 2012 and is competing again in Paris.
In 2001, when he was 18, Arezki lost his sight being shot by security forces during a peace march in his hometown of Azazga. He was protesting against the repression of the Kabyle people by the Algerian government and demanding the recognition of the Tamazight language.
Today, as well as being a French national athlete, Arezki is a qualified piano tuner and musician. Although he received a red card during France’s match with China on 1 September, he promised fans on Instagram that he will “return stronger”.
Morteza Mehrzadselakjani
With a block reach of 6ft 5in, Iran’s Morteza Mehrzadselakjani is one of the most formidable sitting volleyball players in the world. He won Paralympic gold in Tokyo and Rio, and is now set to compete in the upcoming Paris semi-finals after his team’s resounding group stage victories over Ukraine and Brazil.
At 8ft 1in Mehrzadselakjani is the tallest athlete to ever compete at the Paralympics and the second-tallest living man in the world. He normally uses a wheelchair or crutches to get around as the result of a serious pelvic fracture when he was 15. Recently, his coach said Mehrzadselakjani has been forced to sleep on the floor at the Olympic Village, owing to the lack of an appropriately sized bed — an issue Paralympics organisers have said will be resolved.
Souhad Ghazouani
French powerlifter Souhad Ghazouani has won five paralympic medals, including gold in the London 2012 games. She was born with spina bifida and has used a wheelchair since birth. She first discovered powerlifting aged six, while at a rehabilitation centre, and says she lifted 30kg on her first try.
On 6 September, she will compete in the 67kg event alongside world record holder and defending Paralympic champion Yujiao Tan from China. “I love the fact that powerlifting is an individual sport and I have to depend on myself to achieve results,” she told the Paralympic Committee. “It allows me to expend all my energy, which helps to calm me, and I also like to be stronger than men.”
Gischa Zayana
Nineteen-year-old Gischa Zayana from Indonesia marked her Paralympic debut with a bronze medal in women’s individual boccia in the BC2 category, beating ParalympicsGB’s Claire Taggart, the world’s top-ranked player.
Boccia, which involves throwing leather balls as close as possible to a white target ball, has no Olympic counterpart. Sharing similarities with other ball games such as bocce and bowls, it can be played individually and in teams. Zayana took up the sport only three years ago and has quickly become one of the world’s top players, winning gold in the women’s BC2 event at the 2023 Asean Para Games.
Mirzet Duran
Mirzet Duran is the star of the Bosnia and Herzegovina sitting volleyball team, scoring 21 points in the opening Paris Paralympics match against Egypt. He has four Paralympic medals to his name, including one gold at the London 2012 games.
Duran took up the sport as a teenager after he lost his foot in an explosion, aged six, during the siege of Sarajevo.
“Although I became a disabled person very early on, it did not prevent me from being equal among my friends,” he told the International Paralympic Committee. “Especially when I learned about sitting volleyball, a new love was born.”
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