(Adnkronos) – Rigivan Ganeshamoorthy won the first gold medal for Italy in athletics at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. The Italian thrower won the F52 discus final with a measure of 27.06, which also set a new world record, improving the previous reference by more than three meters. Immediately afterwards, he gave an ironic, funny, intelligent interview to Rai Sport. With a Roman accent, a quick quip and frank phrases, he has already won over the sports public.
“What should I say?” he asks the journalist. He says he is shy and seems a bit awkward but then, when Elisabetta Caporale asks him if he wants to dedicate the victory to someone, he says: “To my mother, to Rome, to the tenth municipality, to my neighbor who came to visit me and gave me the flag: a gesture that is worth more than a gold medal”. And again: “This gold is not just for me, it is for the entire Italian nation and all the disabled people who are at home”.
Born in Rome on June 8, 1999 to Sri Lankan parents, he competed for the first time at the Olympic Games in the discus and javelin specialties. The Guillain-Barré syndrome he suffers from was aggravated in 2019 by a cervical injury resulting from a fall. And it was during his rehabilitation on that occasion at the Santa Lucia Hospital that Ganeshamoorthy approached sports.
His first attempt was with wheelchair basketball, which he abandoned shortly after. “It was very tiring,” he told the Olympic Committee, “it wasn’t for me. Then one day in the mechanical workshop where I work I exchanged a few words with a representative of FISPES who invited me to try athletics.” And so the Italian, almost by chance, found his path: he specialized in throwing.
In 2020 he won the silver medal in the F55 shot put at the Italian Paralympic Championships in Jesolo, in 2023 and 2024 he was the Italian Paralympic champion in the F55 shot put and the F54-55 discus throw, setting the F52 European Paralympic record in both disciplines. He is also the Italian champion in the javelin throw, with the F52 Paralympic world record thanks to a measurement of 20.99 m.
(Adnkronos) – Rigivan Ganeshamoorthy won the first gold for Italy in athletics at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. The Italian thrower won the F52 discus final with a measure of 27.06, which also set a new world record, improving the previous reference by more than three meters. Immediately afterwards, he gave an ironic, funny, intelligent interview to the microphones of Rai Sport. With a Roman accent, a quick quip and frank phrases, he has already won over the sports public.
“What should I say?” he asks the journalist. He says he is shy and seems a bit awkward, but then, when Elisabetta Caporale asks him if he wants to dedicate the victory to someone, he says: “To my mother, to Rome, to the tenth municipality, to my neighbor who came to visit me and gave me the flag: a gesture that is worth more than a gold medal”. And again: “This gold is not just for me, it is for the entire Italian nation and all the disabled people who are at home”.
Born in Rome on June 8, 1999 to Sri Lankan parents, he competed for the first time at the Olympic Games in the discus and javelin specialties. The Guillain-Barré syndrome he suffers from was aggravated in 2019 by a cervical injury resulting from a fall. And it was during his rehabilitation on that occasion at the Santa Lucia Hospital that Ganeshamoorthy approached sports.
His first attempt was with wheelchair basketball, which he abandoned shortly after. “It was very tiring,” he told the Olympic Committee, “it wasn’t for me. Then one day in the mechanical workshop where I work I exchanged a few words with a representative of FISPES who invited me to try athletics.” And so the Italian, almost by chance, found his path: he specialized in throwing.
In 2020 he won the silver medal in the F55 shot put at the Italian Paralympic Championships in Jesolo, in 2023 and 2024 he was the Italian Paralympic champion in the F55 shot put and the F54-55 discus throw, setting the F52 European Paralympic record in both disciplines. He is also the Italian champion in the javelin throw, with the F52 Paralympic world record thanks to a measurement of 20.99 m.