My name is Sandra Paović, a former elite athlete, Olympian, and gold medalist at the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Table tennis has been an integral part of my life since childhood, and from an early age, I have achieved numerous prestigious sports titles. I became the European Cadet Champion and later the European Junior Champion. As a senior athlete, I was a key member of the golden generation of Croatian table tennis, securing multiple European medals and awards. Competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games marked the peak of my career as an ablebodied athlete. Shortly after the Olympic Games, I experienced a severe car accident. Despite the most pessimistic medical prognoses, I recovered and went on to become a two-time European and World Para Table Tennis Champion. At the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, I won a gold medal, becoming the only athlete in the world to have competed in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games, eight years apart.
