High jumper Mariyappan Thangavelu overcame long odds on his journey to the winner's podium at the Rio Paralympics.
"I'm just very happy," he told the Hindu after the event. "I expected to win a medal. I just stayed calm and did my best," Thangavelu said.
He was five years old when his right leg had to be amputated after being crushed by a bus. Thangavelu was on his way to school in a village in Tamil Nadu's Salem district at the time.
"I was told the driver was inebriated," he told the Hindu before leaving for Rio. "It doesn't matter. My right leg is now stunted - it is still a five-year-old's leg; it has never grown or healed."
The family is still paying off the loan they took for his treatment after the accident. His mother is a vegetable seller.
"I spoke to my mother last night. She said I would definitely win the gold," he said. "My first priority is to help her. I want to construct a house of our own," Thangavelu told the Hindu.
Thangavelu had finished second in his first competitive event soon after he entered his teens. Last year his coach, Satyanarayana, took him to Bangalore for training.
Thangavelu had qualified for the Paralympics after attaining the 'A' qualification mark at the IPC Grand Prix in Tunisia earlier this year.