RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Nearly 15 years to the day he lost his legs in an auto racing crash in Germany, Italian athlete Alex Zanardi captured a gold medal Wednesday at the Rio Paralympics.
Competing in the men's road hand-cycling time trial, Zanardi won in a time of 28 minutes, 36.81 seconds, ahead of Stuart Tripp of Australia and Oscar Sanchez of the United States.
On Sept. 15, 2001, Zanardi was nearing the end of the American Memorial 500, a CART race, when his car was struck hard by another as he tried to merge back onto the track from pit row.