Sporting Witness
Sporting Witness
Nigeria's Paralympic heroine
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December 23, 2021
10 minutes
Available for over a year
At the 2016 Paralympics in Rio, Nigerian shotputter, Lauritta Onye, became a social media sensation thanks to her cart-wheeling gold-medal celebration dance. Onye has dwarfism and has never grown beyond four foot one, or 125 centimetres. She suffered social stigma in Nigeria and at one point ended up selling DVDs on the street in order to survive. But a taster session of Paralympic sport would transform her life. She talks to Ian Williams .
PHOTO: Lauritta Onye competing at the Rio Paralympics (Getty Images)