On a night of fanfare and spectacular moments during Wednesday's Paralympic Games opening ceremony, there was one man who seemed to capture hearts and minds like no other.
As the 168 team delegations flowed down the splendid Avenue des Champs-Élysées and down to the iconic Place de La Concorde, one group – to use the word liberally - in particular caught the eye.
Only four athletes have represented Palestine since their National Paralympic Committee debuted at the 2000 Games, but a fifth, Fadi Deeb, will join that select band later today in the men’s shot put.
As the only member of Team Palestine, his role as flag bearer was never in doubt, with the throngs of supporters offering up some of the biggest cheers of the night for the wheelchair user.
As striking as that was in itself, even allowing for the breath of incredible tales among the competitors, Deeb’s journey sets him apart.
Shot in the spine by an Israeli sniper in 2001, the sports-mad 17-year-old was left paralysed.
Para basketball was his first love before falling into shot put, yet sport is almost a platform to showcase the difficulties in his homeland.
Born in Gaza, conflict has always been part of his life, but since the conflict between Israel and Hamas, more than 40,000 people have lost their lives. The injured numbers are significantly more.
Deeb has lost more than 15 family members since last October, including his brother and nephew.
An accomplished wheelchair basketballer – he has played in Turkey, Greece and France, including his current first-division club Hurricane 92 Basketball, based in the Paris suburbs – Deeb is using shot put as a chance to compete on the international stage.
While the 39-year-old was part of the newly established Palestinian national basketball team in 2019, tight travel restrictions meant playing at home was difficult, never mind on foreign soil.
At 6.05pm this evening Deeb will be among the 11 competitors in the F54 men's shot put, and become just the fifth Palestinian Paralympian.
Husam Azzam, Palestine's first Paralympian, won silver and bronze in the F53 shot put category, in Sydney and Athens (2004) respectively.
Deeb's PB of 8.84 is the lowest in the field but he doesn’t even have an official throw for a measurement of his season’s best.
Yet measuring his performance by numbers seems hopelessly reductive. Speaking to France 24 before the start of the Games, Deeb said he feels duty-bound to carry the hopes of his war-torn country.
"I get at least 15-20 messages daily from my friends in Gaza saying, 'try to keep going’, ‘I support you’, ‘you are our voice for the world’, ‘you are our hero’, they are still sending me messages encouraging me to keep going," he said.
A report by Save the Children has said that more than 10 children per day in Gaza have lost one or both of their legs since the conflict began last October.
Deeb is acutely aware of the far-reaching consequences his appearance in Paris can have for those in need of a chink of light.
"I told myself: ‘This is not the end of my life, it’s hard, but it’s not the end of my life’. You have to think positively.
"You can use your disability to be talented."
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