• Children's Center

    In the Loop: Spina bifida doesn’t keep Ty from competition

spina bifida patient Ty Wiberg and his team riding bicyclesHaving Olympic withdrawal? Us, too. That's why we were excited to find out the competition in Rio isn't quite over yet. The 2016 Summer Paralympics will take place Sept. 7–18, and from the looks of this promotional (and toe-tapping) trailer, the games will feature athletes every bit as inspiring as their Olympic counterparts. (Trust us, you gotta watch that trailer.)

We're guessing 14-year-old Ty Wiberg of Wisconsin will be watching the competition more closely than most. That's because Ty, who was born with spina bifida, hopes to compete in the games himself someday. It's a goal he's well on his way to achieving, and one that he's working exceptionally hard to reach.

Ty was diagnosed with spina bifida before he was born. Doctors told his parents, Michele and Al, that their child might never walk. But they refused to accept that possibility. "That wasn't an okay answer," Michele says in this video about Ty. Instead, she and Al decided, "Our son will walk." And he did, first with a walker, and eventually unassisted. Read the rest of Ty's story.
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This story originally appeared on the In the Loop blog.

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