Like Sivasangari, show bravery, courage to succeed

[superadmin]

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.

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.

- More -