The Paralympics is full of stories of disabled athletes overcoming the odds to achieve sporting greatness but few bear the trauma of Jean-Baptiste Alaize. A child caught up in the civil war in Burundi in October 1994, he watched as his mother was beheaded. Alaize carries a large scar on his back but he was also slashed across the neck, right arm and right leg by his Hutu neighbours. A decade later, after coming to France in 1998 and being adopted by a French family, he joined the athletics club in Drome. Fitted with a prosthetic limb, he discovered that running gave him his first night without a nightmare since the attack.

Source: The Star September 01, 2020 06:56 UTC