Philip Jönsson first person with Duchenne MD to win gold at Paralympics

Philip Jönsson is 27 years old and a Swedish Paralympic sport shooter. He received the diagnosis Duchenne when he was four years old. Today, he won the gold medal in the mixed 10m air rifle standing SH2 event at the 2020 Summer Paralympics held in Tokyo, Japan. Next to being the first medal for Sweden at the 2020 Summer Paralympics, the final score of 252.8 is also a new Paralympic record.

He took up shooting in 2006 with the Mariestads SG club in Sweden. “At age six I started playing football like a lot of my friends did, but the older I got, the harder it became for me. The illness sadly forced me to stop playing football, but instead I became responsible for the team’s statistics. While I was doing that, I began to look for another sport that would suit me better. Then one day my father was reading in the newspaper that Mariestads SG had a shooting test day. I went there, tried it, and settled on shooting.”

After many years of competing, in 2012 he was about to stop shooting when he came in contact with a woman who introduced him to a talent manager. Upon accepting an invitation to his first talent and breath mode for the disabled, he regained his interest. With the right adjustments and support, he continued parashooting.

Source: http://www.fjshooting.se/

Picture courtesy of https://www.tellerreport.com/