Kieran Behan.

5ft 4ins of pluck.

“Doctors told me, stop thinking about your crazy dreams because you’ll never walk again and you must accept that it’s over for you,” Behan said. “But I just kept saying: ‘No, no, no — this is not the rest of my life. This is not how it’s going to play out.’ And look at me now, an Olympian. They said it was impossible, but I did it.”

Behan, 23, barely clinched an Olympic berth in January, qualifying second to last at the Olympic test event to become the first Irish gymnast to make it to the Games by his own talent, not by wild card.

Once Told He’d Never Walk Again, Irish Gymnast Is Now Olympian (Juliet Macur, New York Times)

Thanks ellybabes

(Getty)