The next Paralympians

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Deepthi Jeevanji grew up in a rural Indian village where she was bullied and mocked for being different. In Paris this summer, she will become India’s first ever Paralympian with an intellectual impairment. After winning 400m gold at this year’s World Para Athletics Championships, she may also come home with a medal. What took India, the world’s most populous country, so long to have a Paralympian with an intellectual disability? Why do fewer than a quarter of the countries competing in the Paralympics send athletes with an intellectual impairment? Dan Pepper, a British ex-Paralympic swimmer who has an intellectual disability, travels to India to meet Deepthi, her parents, and the team around her, as well as speaking to others across the world about the challenges facing athletes with an intellectual impairment. Dan Pepper was the presenter of the World Service’s award-winning series The Fake Paralympians, in which he investigated the cheating scandal at the 2000 Paralympics that shocked the world and how it led to a ban on athletes like him from the Paralympic Games, ruining his sporting career. Presenter: Dan Pepper Producer: Simon Maybin (Photo: Deepthi Jeevanji, India’s first ever Paralympian with an intellectual impairment. Credit: Simon Maybin)