Meet Megan Blunk: Paralympic Gold Medallist

11 years ago she was involved in a motorbike accident which paralysed her from the waist down. Megan was 18 years old and didn’t know what the future held for her. However, she is fulfilling her dream today: she works as an assistive technology professional and she has won the Gold Medal in the Paralympic Games. To better herself and give the best of herself is her daily motivation and she says: “this wish, together with my faith and courage are the three things that have taken me to where I am now”.

Megan Blunk suffered that motorbike accident while she was sitting in the back and fell onto the road. She broke her back, had a collapsed lung and remained paralysed from the waist down.

Megan had always loved sport and everybody who knew her was sure that she would go far with it. However, after the accident, she fell into a depression and regretted all opportunities she had missed. She wasn’t discouraged by this thought and kept fighting for sport every day. “I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel but I kept on moving forward every day”. I went to the gym, to school and every night I would cry myself to sleep”.

One year after the accident, Megan Blunk discovered basketball on a wheelchair. That was a second chance for her to rise upon herself. She started training on a regular wheelchair on a daily basis since she couldn’t afford the adapted and special ones. That wouldn’t stop her from training. Finally, she managed to achieve a basketball wheelchair and could join a basketball camp on wheelchair with elite athletes. In that moment, she was offered a scholarship for the University of Illinois. “And just like this, I could see the end of the tunnel. I knew I could reach the light at the end of it. I didn’t doubt for a moment that I would do what it took to be at the Paralympic Games”.

And since then, she worked hard, spent hours training until she reached her dream in 2016. That year Megan Blunk attended the Paralympic Games in Rio as part of the USA team. After so many years of hard work, her efforts and tenacity were duly rewarded: the team won the Gold Medal.