If you thought winning a gold medal in one sport was impressive, take a moment for Paralympic athlete Dylan Alcott who’s won two – in two completely different sports.
On Tuesday, Alcott, along with his partner Heath Davidson, beat the U.S. team to win the tennis quad doubles final at the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. And this wasn’t his first time in first place.
In 2008, Alcott was part of Australia’s gold medal-winning wheelchair basketball team at the Beijing Paralympic Games in 2008.
In an interview with Channel 7 after quad doubles match in Rio, Alcott, who was born with a tumour around his spinal cord and became a paraplegic after surgery as a newborn, said he couldn’t believe his team had won gold.
He said:
It’s my gold medal in a second sport, and if you told a kid at school who was getting bullied about his disability that, when I was 8 years old, there’s no way I would have believed it. I’m just the luckiest guy in the world.
And his gold-winning streak may not stop there. Alcott will have another shot at gold in the final of the quad singles.
And in addition to mastering whatever sport comes his way, Alcott is also a decent rapper.
He performed with Wu-Tang’s Ghostface Killah at the Meredith Music Festival back in 2014:
Alcott told the Herald Sun at the time: “My brother Zack, who loves hip hop as much as I do, told me: ‘I’ve seen you win a gold medal, I’ve seen you overcome disability, but without a doubt, [the rap] was the proudest moment of my life.”
I think now that Alcott’s won two gold medals in two different sports, Zack may change his mind on that.
