Ibrahim Hamadtou

Ibrahim Hamadtou grew up in a village in the Nile Delta. When he was ten he fell under a train and lost both arms. He has said that the hardest part of what followed was not the physical loss but the way people looked at him, and the assumption that his life was more or less over.

He had played football and table tennis before the accident. Three years later, watching friends play table tennis in the village, he was told he would only ever be able to referee. He took that as a challenge. He tried holding the bat under his arm, which did not work, then tried gripping it in his mouth. He learned to toss the ball with his foot to serve, and spent years working out how to put spin on the ball by turning his head and neck.

For a long time he played only locally. Then a short video of him at an exhibition in Tokyo in 2014 was watched by millions of people, and the sport's governing body invited him to its showcase events. He won medals at African championships and qualified for the Rio Paralympics in 2016, and again for Tokyo in 2021, playing against opponents who had the use of their arms.

He has said he does not want sympathy, only for people to see what is possible.