The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games has been a pleasure to watch as 4,400 athletes from around the world compete in 549 medal events across 22 sports. All the athletes have overcome disabilities to achieve an amazing level of skill. They are so happy to be at the Paralympics. Many of them know each other and understand the challenges each of them has faced just to be at the Games. They rejoice with those who succeed and feel genuine sadness for those who don’t.

Karé Adenegan is a wheelchair racer. Karé was born prematurely with cerebral palsy – a neurological condition which impacts muscle movement. In 2012, when she was 11, she attended the London Paralympics as a spectator. The motto of the Games was “Inspire a Generation”, and for Karé, whose disability meant she’d never been allowed to play sport at school, this slogan became a reality. Just 4 years after watching London 2012, Karé won three medals in the 2016 Rio Paralympics. In Tokyo, she won two more. Now 23, the softly spoken wheelchair racer is bidding for a medal in her third successive games. She sums up her remarkable journey as simply “Mind-blowing”. She won a silver medal at Paris in the Women’s 100m T34.

Karé grew up in a loving Christian home and received Jesus as her personal Saviour when she was 10-years old. Her faith has been a constant during difficult times. As a professional elite athlete, she’s broken world records, competed at major international championships and was crowned BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year in 2018. But Karé insists that she finds her true value in her Creator rather than her sporting success. Being part of Mosaic Church in Coventry is a source of strength to Karé.

Karé says, “Everything I do revolves around my faith. In the past I questioned my disability, questioned God and questioned my purpose. But I remember being on the track and having a sense of: ‘Wow, God, you’re with me, and you brought me here.’ On the start line, every time, my prayer is: ‘Your will be done.’ There is a tension sometimes. I do want to be the best athlete possible. I do want to win; I do want to succeed. But I feel like God’s really challenged me to let go of some of that ambition and just do what’s in my control – and trust that the outcome, whatever it is, is in God’s hands. There is so much freedom when you let go of the outcome. I won’t win everything and always be successful, but I trust the outcome is going to be a good one, because I have faith in a sovereign Father who is always working for good in my life.”