Paralympians who faced polio: a lovey-dovey table tennis duo, a fierce wheelchair racer

Kayode and Christiana Alabi have a lot in common. They each contracted polio as children growing up in Nigeria. They each took up table tennis. They met at national table tennis trials in 2017, fell in love and married in 2022. And now they’re competing in their first Paralympics.

They’re also the stars of a delightful BBC video released at the start of the games. “She’s my woman,” says Kayode as they play a match. “I can beat him any day any time,” says Christiana with a chuckle. Kayode uses a cane to walk. Christiana uses a wheelchair.

Reflecting on their lives, Kayode says, “It’s not easy to be physically challenged in this country, you do many things by yourself.”

“My family I don’t think they see me as someone who will become something in life,” says Christiana.

From an early age she was drawn to the sport. “I loved it, even when I was very little and I used to play on the street,” she said in her official bio. “There was no table tennis table in my village. From when I was 7, we used little wooden benches on the street. We played with golf balls using bathroom slippers as racquets. I didn’t know that I could have it as a career.”

The couple went to Paris with the hope of medaling. “I believe that for both of us to be the No.1 in our country, and the No.1 in Africa, we can be the No.1 in the world,” Kayode has said — his nickname is the “Lion King” for his aggressive style of playing. But their medal dream did not come true.

The lingering impact of polio

Polio is a disease that has been eliminated in the vast majority of the world’s countries due to vaccines but persists in such countries as Afghanistan and Pakistan and has just resurfaced in Gaza.

Paralympic athletes past and present who survived childhood polio infections often strive to bring awareness to the importance of vaccination and to share insights into their lives as polio survivors. It’s a disease that has been eliminated in the vast majority of the world’s countries due to vaccines but persists in such countries as Afghanistan and Pakistan and has just resurfaced in Gaza.

“Many teenagers and adults are suffering the consequences [of a previous polio infection] now,” explains Dr. Tunji Funsho, a member of Rotary’s International PolioPlus Committee who in 2020 was recognized as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people for his efforts to eradicate polio in Africa. “For example, the opportunity to go to school. Even if they want to, they can’t move to get to the schools. It becomes a big burden to families taking care of children.”

Feared by her neighbors

Paralympian wheelchair racer and disability advocate Anne Wafula Strike contracted polio as a child in Kenya. She says that her family had to flee their village because neighbors believed she was cursed. “They tried to burn down my dad’s mud hut,” Strike tells NPR, “We were ostracized for fear that what I had would be passed to other children.”

(The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says: “Polio is a life-threatening disease caused by a virus that affects the nervous system and is usually spread from one person to another when stool (poop) or, less commonly, droplets from a sneeze or cough of an infected person gets into the mouth of another person.” A person is considered contagious for up to six weeks after infection.)

After moving to the capital city, Strike was able to receive medical treatment and rehabilitation. But she still faced a lot of stigma: “I remember wanting to play with other little girls and their parents would see and call them to come in.”

Things changed when Strike was able to attend a boarding school for children with disabilities. “As soon as I entered the gates of the school, I felt at home,” she says. “Do you know why? Because we were all the same. We didn’t stare at one another.”

‘The Formula 1 of para sports’

In 2002, after moving to the U.K. and having her first child, Strike was home watching the para sports competition at the Commonwealth Games. Wheelchair racing popped up on her screen. “I saw these amazing, strong, powerful women in their racing chairs pushing so hard and I vividly remember one face that captured me: Louise Savage from Australia. I saw Louise’s face and I saw determination, I saw fierceness, I saw hard-work, I saw a no-nonsense kind of attitude … and I thought that’s what I want to do.”

“To me [wheelchair racing] was actually like Formula 1 of para sports,” she says. “It was just incredible.”

In 2004, Strike became the first Kenyan wheelchair racer to compete in the Paralympics at the Athens Games. This year, she is in Paris as a mentor and coach helping athletes from multiple countries.

“I am mentoring athletes not just in the U.K. but also internationally in low-income countries. We are soon putting an academy together where people from low-income countries can be given opportunities to compete at the really high level in their sport.”

Reflecting on her own life, she adds: “Sport was a blessing in disguise because, when I was in Africa, I never really played sports as a disabled young woman because that was not something that was available to me.”