One-armed Bruna Alexandre is close to achieving her goal of competing in next year's Paris Paralympics, the Olympics for athletes with disabilities.
Alexandre lost her right arm when she was three years old due to a thrombosis. ABC News reported that she started playing table tennis at age seven and Paralympic sports at age 13.
Alexandre already has one silver and two bronze medals from the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, according to ABC News. Being Brazil's No. 3 women's table tennis player and among the world's top 5 Paralympic table tennis players, the 28-year-old is assured of a spot in the 2024 Paralympics.
Alexandre, however, also aims to make it to the Paris Olympics simultaneously by getting into the top 80 Olympics ping pong players. She is currently 220th in the Olympic rankings. If she pulls it off, it would be historic as Alexandre will become the first athlete from the Americas to compete in the Olympics and Paralympics in the same year.
"I want to show that everyone with a handicap can do anything. I want to leave that image of me playing in the Olympics one day," she said, according to ABC News.
If having only one arm is challenging enough, having no arms at all is quite difficult. But Jane Ramos of Nasugbu, Batangas is a disabled person who does things normal people do.
While Ramos doesn't excel in sports, she is as accomplished as Alexandre in her own way. For one, she is independent, doing things herself unassisted.
Ramos can do everything from eating to twisting open a soft drink bottle cap and filling an empty cup, as shown in one recent episode of the TV program "I Juander."
She went to school and obtained a Financial Management degree in 2022. She currently works as an administrative aide in the Nasugbu municipal office.
One would wonder how Ramos uses a smartphone, but she does it like normal people do, without tailor-made bionic arms and hands.
Her unique abilities include cooking dishes like her favorite tinola, from picking the papaya fruit from the tree in their backyard to chopping garnishings, including peeling garlic. She does everything casually with her own two legs, feet, and toes.
Armless Ramos, indeed, can do feats with just her feet.
WJG @tribunephl_wjg WITH AFP
