Beatrice Vio
Lost both arms and both legs to meningitis at 11 and became a Paralympic fencing champion
Beatrice Vio, known to everyone as Bebe, started fencing at five in Mogliano Veneto near Venice, and by 11 was one of the best in her age group in Italy. In November 2008 she came home from training with a headache. It was meningococcal meningitis, and within days she was in intensive care with sepsis spreading through her body. To save her life surgeons amputated both forearms and both legs below the knee. She spent more than three months in hospital.
Wheelchair fencing did exist, but every wheelchair fencer in the world had at least one hand to hold the weapon. Vio had none. Her parents and an orthopaedic technician built a prosthesis that strapped the foil to her forearm, and she had to learn how to move it from the shoulder and elbow alone. Within a year and a half of leaving hospital she was fencing again.
She won her first European title in 2014 and the world championship in 2015. At the Rio Paralympics in 2016, aged 19, she won gold in the individual foil, taking the final 15-7, and a bronze with the Italian team. In Tokyo she defended her title, having recovered from another life-threatening infection that nearly cost her an arm the year before.
She and her parents set up a charity, art4sport, that pays for prosthetic limbs so that other amputee children can play sport. Her catchphrase, roughly "life is awesome", is printed on everything it produces.