Tear Jerker / Paralympic Games

• At the 2008 Beijing Games, one of the songs at the opening ceremony is about a man who cannot see but managed to gained his vision again through song.
• At the 2016 Rio Games, Bahman Golbarnezhad, an Iranian cyclist, crashed out of the men's road race and then, while in the ambulance, died of a massive cardiac arrest. It was the first fatality in Paralympics history, and a tragic reminder that, feel-good stories aside, this is still just as unforgiving as the Olympics. And somehow, the Iranian sitting volleyball team still had enough wits about them to beat Bosnia and Herzegovina in the gold medal match the very next day. For an extra dose of tearjerker, the players put a framed photo of Bahman at the foot of the medal stand.
• At the 2020 Tokyo Games, Zakia Khudadadi, an Afghan athlete managed to compete in taekwondo after she and her collage secretly escaped the Taliban.