12-05-2023, 07:07 AM
![[Image: 88c307ee-lazarus-rokk-columnist-new-121023-1.jpg]](https://media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/88c307ee-lazarus-rokk-columnist-new-121023-1.jpg)
Sivasangari Subramaniam. She has another name – Dhill. She might as well be called that, because in Tamil that word means bravery, courage, pluckiness, fearlessness, and anything else that means valiantly confronting adversity in its face.
I recall decades ago witnessing this “dhill phenomena ” powering 18-year-old female gymnast, Kerri Strug, at the Georgia Dome in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. She had sustained a painful third-degree lateral strain on her left ankle and two torn ligaments after her first vault.
![[Image: S-Sivasangari_skuasy_bernama-030519.jpg]](https://media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/S-Sivasangari_skuasy_bernama-030519.jpg)
Looking at this demure girl who was barely five feet tall, everyone thought the fight was over for the US team.
But to everyone’s surprise, a pleasant one for the Americans, this plucky girl fought back the pain, ran, jumped and vaulted to help the USA all-around team to the gold, ending four decades of Russian and Eastern European dominance.
Truly, there is no such thing as a disabled body, only a disabled mind. Coincidentally, this was the tagline of the 1996 Paralympics.
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