Ntando Mahlangu
Had both legs amputated as a child and became a Paralympic long jump world record holder as a teenager
Ntando Mahlangu was born in Mpumalanga, South Africa, with a congenital condition called hemimelia, which meant the lower parts of his legs never fully developed. He spent much of his early childhood in a wheelchair, unable to walk unaided, until doctors decided in 2012 that amputating both legs below the knee would give him a better chance of an active life. Later that year a South African charity called Jumping Kids fitted him with his first set of running blades.
He took to running on the blades almost immediately, and by 15 he was breaking world records in junior competition, setting new marks in the T42 classification for both the 100 and 400 metres at the World Junior Championships in Switzerland. His rise from a child who had spent years unable to walk to a record-breaking teenage sprinter happened within only a few years.
At the 2016 Rio Paralympics he won a silver medal in the 200 metres at just 14 years old, one of the youngest medallists at the Games. Five years later at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Paralympics he won gold in both the long jump and the 200 metres, setting a new world record of 7.17 metres in the T61 long jump in the process.
He was featured in the Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix, which profiled Paralympians ahead of the Tokyo Games, and has continued competing and setting records into his twenties, one of the most recognisable young athletes in the modern Paralympic movement.